In Arizona, Heliae announced a capital raise of  $15 million in funding from international conglomerate Salim Group’s agribusiness company, PT PP London Sumatra Indonesia, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Agri Investments.

This marks a total of close to $50 million in funding that Heliae has received since launching in 2008.  As a start-up venture spun out of Arizona State University with the support of Science Foundation of Arizona, Heliae’s mission is to develop and validate technology solutions for the commercial production of algae for a variety of potential uses including food & feed, fertilizer, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and fuel.

This new round of investment will support tangible steps toward creating an international presence for Heliae’s technology by funding continued research and development at Heliae’s demonstration facility in Arizona, and taking steps toward operating an R&D center in Indonesia. The aim is for commercial production in 2014.

The Heliae story

You can forgive yourself if the Heliae story feels a little fuzzy. They have enough stealth in their approach to the mission to make a SEAL team proud.

Here are the key notes in the narrative. Spun out of Arizona State University in 2008 as a technology for the commercial production of kerosene from algae using technologies developed at ASU’s Laboratory for Algae Research & Biotechnology.

At the time, ASU entered into a $3 million R&D collaboration with Heliae Development  and Science Foundation Arizona to develop, produce and sell kerosene-based aviation fuel derived from algae. Heliae itself was a closely-held investment of members of the Mars family – they of chocolate, Doane Petcare, Wrigleys gum and Life Savers fame. Less known over in Planet Mars is the division known as Mars Fishcare, which supplies home aquarium and pond products, including Aquarium Pharmaceuticals.

Ah, hence the stealth – the Mars family is famous for it. It took decades before they allowed the first reporter into one of their factories to see a machine stamp the “M” on an M&M.

With the Mars family investment, the company tapped former BioFuel Energy COO Dan Simon as CEO and, unsurprisingly but critically, expanded the focus beyond fuels and into foods, feed and fertilizers. But it had not, by any means, abandoned fuels. Last year SkyNRG signed an MOU with Heliae to produce algae-based jet fuel, and at last year’s Paris Air Show, Heliae Development and Azmark Aero Systems announced a collaboration to develop and promote algal fuels in jet engines.

The technology’s raison d’être? Bringing the low-cost of open ponds systems to the high yields of the closed PBRs. The Heliae system, ultimately, is going to look something like a greenhouse, and is expected to be built out to a 160 acre-demonstration, with groundbreaking on its pilot plant scheduled for later this month in Arizona – and includes a patent-pending extraction process in its IP portfolio.

How do they get the capex and opex down?  For sure, it is stubbornly high costs that have plagued the crowded field of closed photobioreactor systems and prevented them from getting into the food and feed markets, much less the fuel pool.

Over at Heliae, a lot of answers lie behind the Great Wall of We’ll Let You Know Later that commonly guards most early-stage algal technologies. We do know that the Heliae solution is designed as a bolt-on solution for industrial CO2 emitters or nitrogenous waste sources – and their algal strains are reported to be producing at rates that are well above industry norms.

Heliae’s take

“The recognition and support of the Salim Group delivers a sense of validation to our work,” said Dan Simon, President and CEO of Heliae. “These additional funds will help us broaden our reach and allow us to build a presence in Southeast Asia. Of equal importance to Heliae is the strategic relationship we have developed with Salim’s team and alignment of both groups – we look forward to the large impact we’ll be able to make collectively.”

Frank Mars, co-Founder and Chairman of the Board for Heliae, stated, “I am personally pleased to welcome the Salim group into the Heliae family.  As one of the most prominent equatorial-based food businesses in Southeast Asia, their Chairman, Anthoni Salim, recognizes the need to develop new and sustainable sources of nutrition and agricultural inputs to support the region’s growing demands.”

Salim Group’s take

“Frank and I are of one mind on developing the solutions to address today’s issues with soil fertility, fresh water, growing demand for fish and animal feeds and ultimately sustainable fuel,” said Anthoni Salim. “Our two families are committed to impacting the world’s future in a positive way.  Both the large impact we see with algae and Heliae’s comprehensive approach to developing algae technology solutions formed our rationale for this strategic investment.”

The Digest’s Take

It’s been a while since there’s been a strategic investment in algal-based technologies of this size, so welcome it is on simply that level – good news for algal fans, everywhere.

But let’s focus on on three aspects that are especially interesting.

The Rock Star factor. Anthoni Salim is not all that well known in the US and Europe, but he’s Indonesia’s 5th wealthiest individual (net worth, reported by Forbes at $3.6 billion), and has multiple food, cement, real estate, banking, and mining public companies in his control. Over in Asia, his name is an established brand.

The Food Factor. Over the next few years, expect a fairly healthy number of algal companies to pivot to the feed and food sectors, en route to entering fuels. Solazyme, as it usually does, pointed the way in its collaboration with France’s Roquette. PetroAlgae recently rebranded itself Parabel and is headed in that direction.

Why? Feed and food, while smaller markets than fuels, offer vast gulfs of opportunity, and higher per-ton prices. More importantly, Asia is long capital and short feed. Especially fish feed – a hugely important sector for Asian countries on every level, facing declining yields from ocean harvesting, growing populations, and costs rising in fishmeal so fast enough to make an oil baron blush.

The Connection Factor. Connecting the Salim Group (owner of one of the largest integrated food companies in the world – IndoFoods, Agri Investments Pte Ltd., Lonsum and so on) and members of the Mars family, another one of the largest integrated food companies in the world – well, that’s worth tracking through just about any macro financial lens you’d like to look at it through, and the connection runs through Heliae.

Next steps for Heliae

Well, they obviously have to get the pilot plant up and running, move towards a demonstration at scale within something approaching the 2014-15 timelines, and prove that they can shake out the costs and keep the systems running. Tasks that have felled many a promising technology coming out of the lab – the vital conversion from science project to corporation.

Next, prove out the “Mikey likes it” test – that the algae works for the food and feed applications they have targeted. Sign the downstream distribution agreements — for a company that has Mars and Salim DNA, that should be a snap. Then go big, and as costs shake out further, tap into the fuel markets — especially should oil pass $150 a barrel as expected this decade.

Knocking tomorrow and the pay-back problem

Easier to write than do. One of the reasons that former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich derided President Obama as “President Algae” – critiquing the President’s focus on a long-term fix through transforming the feedstock mix, rather than relaxing environmental goals to relieve pressures in the here and now with more oil and gas drilling.

It’s easy to knock tomorrow – after all, by definition tomorrow’s not here yet, and fails the “if we don’t have it, there must be a good reason” test. Lots of things fail the straw man, “where are the gallons?” test.

Take five year old children, for example. Why invest public dollars in their moral or scholastic education, when you absolutely know, in five years, all you are going to have is a ten-year old that is going to require even more investment?

To raise kids, we have to take perplexing 25-year journeys through dark waters, with financial requirements and returns that would not, ahem, exactly thrill corporate executives seeking 20 percent IRRs and three-year payback.

But there are those in every generation who undertake the journey – understanding that part of the magic is in the journey itself – in the unexpected discoveries along the way. Parents are confident that, given the right applications of innovation, imagination and discipline, that the modern adult will appear. If only corporate parents could learn therefrom.

So too it is with advanced technology. And with Heliae, there go Mars and Salim, off on their journey. Two families with a track record of getting it done.

biofuelsdigest.com

The Working Group consists of government officials of the Park, Non-governmental agencies, companies and academics.
Video cameras placed at several locations in this extensive park have recorded 35 rhinos, among which are a number of young ones. This means that our efforts to save the endangered rhino are creating results. There is this small community here that sincerely cares for the conservation of the animals, continued Haryono. Rhinos are very shy and elusive animals, very rarely seen live. In the dense jungle, their images can be captured only on strategically placed videos.

In the past 12 months, the Working Group has concentrated not only on the growth of the rhino population but also ensured improved welfare of the local population in surrounding villages through training and education for alternative livelihood, so as to stop poaching into the Park. Among the projects is the contstruction of a 3.4 km. bamboo pipeline to supply clean water to remote villages.

Aida Greenbury, Managing Director Sustainability & Stakeholder Engagement of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), whose company is involved in the conservation of the Java rhino, added that conservation efforts need a strategic approach which includes economic development of the local population besides improved habitat for the animals. One action for the latter is to control the growth of the plant species called “langkap” which destroys the plant food for the rhinos.
The Ujung Kulon National Park, located in the extreme south west of the island of Java opposite the Krakatau volcano, covers an area of 122,451 hectares, and is surrounded by 15 villages. The Park today counts a total of 35 rhinos.
(Source: indonesia.travel Bisnis Indonesia).

Sidrotun arrived in Aceh’s Pidie district in 2006, after she graduated in marine biology from the University of Queensland in Australia. Working as part of a tsunami rehabilitation program through the World Wildlife Fund, Sidrotun was asked to consult on a shrimp breeding project.

“They said, ‘You’re clever and still young, you must study the shrimp and help us,’?” Sidrotun said. And so she dedicated herself to shrimp, and helping the people of Pidie and Aceh get back on their feet.

Sidrotun is from a large Javanese family and excelled at school, picking up a number of prestigious scholarships as she furthered her studies. She is thought to be one of the first crustacean pathologists in a country that is one of the biggest shrimp producers in the world.

Shrimp farming is a high-risk business, with shrimp being highly prone to a handful of illnesses, the most dangerous of which is white spot syndrome, a viral infection that can wipe out an entire broodstock (a term in aquaculture that refers to a group of mature individuals used for breeding purposes) in three days.

Although Indonesia is among the biggest shrimp exporters in the world, along with China, Thailand and Vietnam, the country still does very little scientific research to support local shrimp farmers. Plenty of studies have been carried out on fish and crabs, Sidrotun said, but not shrimp.

“The shrimp industry began in the ’80s when people stopped catching shrimp and began breeding them,” she said. “But shrimp are prone to illness because of the density of the broodstock.”

In 2009, Sidrotun won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Arizona in Tucson, a reference laboratory for studying illnesses in shrimp, where she is now completing her master’s thesis on the effects of adding tilapia (a type of fish) to shrimp broodstock.

After 16 weeks of research in Arizona, Sidrotun found that tilapia can help the health of the stock. In a regular broodstock, shrimp typically live at the bottom of the pond.

Sidrotun’s experiment involved breeding tilapia above the broodstock by putting them in a large fish net. This improved the quality of the water, as the fish seemed to consume the bacteria before it could filter down to the bottom of the pond and attack the shrimp.

“[Adding tilapia] also adds economic value for our farmers, because they can breed fish, algae and shrimp all in one broodstock,” Sidrotun said.

But the exact reasons behind the results are inconclusive, and she hopes to investigate the results further.

Last week, Sidrotun won a fellowship worth $40,000 from For Women in Science, a collaboration between Unesco and the L’Oreal Foundation in Paris. Sidrotun said she planned to use the fellowship, which was awarded by a jury led by Nobel winners, to fund her postdoctoral studies at Harvard’s medical school, where she is a visiting scholar.

The seventh of 11 children, Sidrotun said her family usually ate rice and tempeh when she was growing up, and rarely indulged in seafood. Her father, Abidullah, was a high school teacher, and is now retired with his wife, Siti Muslichah.

Despite a humble upbringing, half of Sidrotun’s siblings went to school overseas through scholarships, including her third brother, who is now pursuing his studies in management at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Sidrotun has a 6-year-old son, and is married to Dedi Priadi, who studies psychology at the University of Arizona.

Upon completion of her dissertation and graduation, Sidrotun intends to study IMNV, one of the most threatening shrimp viruses found in Brazil and Indonesia. The virus first appeared in Indonesia in 2006, and has since caused harvest failures costing millions of dollars, she said.

“Last year, our farmers suffered a loss of $150 million to $200 million because of this virus,” she said.

Upon graduating from the University of Arizona, Sidrotun intends to study how IMNV and shrimp interact. A large number of shrimp survive the virus, and she hopes to discover what allows some shrimp to survive while others die. It is a scientific long-shot, but every major breakthrough begins with a single step.

“To be able to design a system to minimize the risk, we have to understand the virus first,” she said. “I hope in 5 to 10 years, our native shrimp can be more stable, so that traditional farmers can have a more solid bargaining position.”

The fishing industry has not been kind to shrimp farmers, Sidrotun said. The industry will often help farmers start their stocks, she said, but then make them shoulder all the costs for failed harvests.

“It should be the part of the company’s risk and not just farmers, because some crucial things, like disease, are out of their control,” she said.

It might seem like a scientist dedicated to producing healthy shrimp stock would harbor a certain disdain for disease, but Sidrotun speaks about viruses with respect.

“Viruses have been on earth much longer than bacteria and humans have, so we have to understand them,” she said. “Through evolution, humans have become smaller and smaller, but what we don’t know is if viruses have become stronger.”

What we do know, she said, is that unlike plants and animals, which are all built on unchanging DNA, viruses can mutate and adapt very quickly, which is why they are so difficult to study.

The cure for HIV, for example, continues to elude scientists despite years of research and billions of dollars in funding. But IMNV is more complicated because it is a double-strand, where HIV is a single-strand.

Sidrotun is passionate about improving the understanding of — and someday finding a cure for — IMNV. She is currently working with Max Nibert at Harvard, who discovered the 3D structure of the virus.

Sidrotun also hopes her research will be useful for scientists invested in study of the rotavirus, which kills about 500,000 children every year worldwide.

She said, “A virus may seem like a minor thing because to us it’s invisible, but it can destroy months of efforts by our local farmers in days, so yes, it’s important.”

The two-inch-long (five-centimeter-long) black insects are shrouded in mystery—all of the wasp specimens caught so far have been dead.

“I’m not certain any researcher has ever seen one alive, but they are very bizarre-looking,” said study co-author Lynn Kimsey, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis, who co-discovered the insect.

“It’s the extreme version of the [larrine wasp] subfamily they belong to.”

Larrine wasps typically dig nests for their eggs and larvae in open, sandy areas. The adults grow no longer than an inch (2.5 centimeters)—making the newly discovered Megalara garuda the “king of wasps,” according to the study authors.

Wasp Males’ Spiky Jaws

Female M. garuda wasps look like most other wasp species, but the males grow long, sickle-shaped jaws.

The males’ flattened faces and large, spiked jaws may be clever adaptations to protect a nest that contains vulnerable larvae, she suggested.

“Other wasps of the same species often rob burrows for food, and parasites try to get in there, too,” she said. “There’s a serious advantage to having the nest guarded. This may be how the male helps guarantee his paternity.”

In general, “we don’t know what this wasp does,” Kimsey said. “But it probably feeds its larvae grasshoppers or katydids, like other wasps in its subfamily.”

“Mythical” Wasp Under Threat

Kimsey and co-author Michael Ohl, of Berlin’s Humboldt University, caught their first glimpse of the new wasp in Indonesia’s Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, where the bugs had been kept in storage since 1930. Ohl also found unidentified specimens at the Humboldt Museum in Berlin.

On a 2009 expedition, the team found more wasps at a cacao plantation in the southeastern mountains of Sulawesi. In naming M. garuda, the team looked to the national symbol of Indonesia: a mythical half-human, half-bird creature in the Hindu religion called Garuda.

Although as many as a hundred thousand species of insects may live on Sulawesi, Kimsey suspects “only half have names.”

But the fates of these species—including the newfound wasp—are in jeopardy. Since the 1960s forests in the region have been increasingly leveled to plant several types of crops. (Read about rain forest threats.)

“The place where we collected wasps is slated to be an open-pit nickel mine,” Kimsey said.

“Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach.”

The new giant-wasp study recently appeared in the journal ZooKeys.
taken from National Geographic

Tujuan Khusus: – Memberikan Informasi kepada khalayak mengenai
pentingnya menjaga lingkungan.
– Memberikan informasi kepada khalayak mengenai
produk-produk olahan sampah yang bernilai
- Mengubah mindset khalayak untuk hidup dengan cara yang lebih ramah lingkungan.

Apa itu ECOUTURE 2012?
Ecouture 2012 atau Eco Way for Future 2012 adalah kegiatan yang diselenggarakan oleh Young On Top bekerja sama dengan KOPHI (Koalisi Pemuda Hijau Indonesia). Ecouture merupakan bagian dari aksi nyata kami terhadap kecintaan pada lingkungan. Ecouture sendiri di bagi dalam dua Tahap yaitu pre event dan main event. Pre Event ECOUTURE 2012 dilaksanakan pada tanggal 25 Maret 2012 dari pukul 07.00 sampai 11.00 WIB di Car Free Day Thamrin area samping UOB Plaza, Jakarta.
Pada pre event ini ada beberapa kegiatan yang diselenggarakan yaitu pembagian tanaman kecil Sansevieria sebanyak 2000 pot kepada peserta Car Free Day, kampanye dan dilanjutkan dengan talkshow dan performance. Kampanye tentang plant tree plan life , dimana memberikan penyadar tahuan dan menyuarakan tentang pentingnya keberadaan pohon dan pentingnya melestarikan pohon, kami mengajak kepada masyarakat di perkotaan untuk dapat melakukan hal kecil guna melestarikan lingkungan dengan cara menanam pohon di rumah, tidak hanya itu melalui penanaman pohon, plant tree plan life juga berusaha memberikan edukasi dan penyadar tahuan guna menumbuhkan kesadaran untuk kita semakin menjaga kelestraian pohon yang sudah ada yaitu seperti pohon-pohon yang ada di hutan, dan hutan pun juga bukan hanya tentang hutan hujan yang ada di kalimantan dan sumatra tapi juga hutan bakau yang ada di seluruh Indonesia khususnya di Jakarta yang perlu di perhatikan, maka dari itu kami juga di dukung oleh Kemangteers Jakarta yang meruapakan suatu komunitas penyelamatan hutan bakau yang ada di jakarta.
Untuk talkshow yang bertema “Plant Tree, Plan Life” ada 2 orang pembicara yaitu Gracia Paramitha dari Kementrian Lingkungan Hidup dan Bayu Wardhana dari Green Map Jakarta, dengan moderator Anindhita Indira (HiLo Green Ambassador 2011). Untuk performances ada Delay Monday band, SATCF Punk band, Percussion, dan Smale Cheerleaders. Ada juga Theatrical Campaign dari Trisakti. Peserta yang membawa Tumbler mendapatkan minuman gratis dari Starbucks. Tidak hanya itu Ecouture juga nanti akan mengadakan road show ke sekolah-sekolah sebagai gerakan yang berkelanjutan dengan bekerja sama pada pihak-pihak sekolah untuk melakukan penghijauan.

Tidak ketinggalan di ECOUTURE juga ada tumbler photo competition dimana mengajak masyarakat untuk berphoto bersama botol minum kesayangannya untuk menularkan gerakan untuk menggunakan tumbler yaitu one man one tumbler untuk mengurangi penggunaan botol minum dan gelas plastik sekali pakai dan menggatinya dengan menggunakan tumbler, karna di jkarta sendiri botol dan gelas plastik sekali pakai merupakan sampah yang paling terbanyak dan itu sangatlah merusak lingkungan.
@YOTgreen
@KOPHI_

Piala yang diterima oleh walikota Palembang tanggal 5 Maret 2012 kemarin di Phnomh Penh, Kamboja, adalah bentuk penghargaan yang diadakan sebagai salah satu cara meningkatkan lingkungan hidup di kawasan ASEAN. Palembang sukses meraih penghargaan ini karena berhasil mengesankan tim penilai dari ASEAN Working Group on Environmentally Sustainable Cities (AWGESC).

Mengapa Palembang bisa menang? usut punya usut, kota mpek – mpek ini ternyata memukau tim penilai dengan konsep pembersihan kotanya. adanya sistem pembuangan limbah yang teratur, sanitasi yang semakin baik, serta pemerintah dan masyarakat yang sadar akan kebersihan membuat lingkungan kota Palembang senantiasa terjaga kebersihannya.

Kekompakan antara pemerintah dan masyarakat dalam merubah kota membuat ibu kota Sumatra Selatan yang pernah dicap sebagai salah satu kota paling kotor ini kini menjadi kota terbersih di Asean. Palembang adalah contoh keberhasilan bangkitnya kota yang terjadi karena semua lapisan masyarakat sadar akan kebersihan.

ditulis oleh Farah Fitriani (farahfitrianifaruq@gmail.com / @farafit)

The results astounded her. After three days of taking only one third of the prescribed dose of herbal pills, the pain had vanished, making her wonder if she’d found “the magic bullet of all time.”

Jane-Beers spent the next decade researching the origins, myths, tightly guarded recipes and commercial applications of herbal medicine in Java, where plants have been used for medicinal purposes since prehistory. Her 2001 opus Jamu: The Ancient Art of Herbal Healing remains the only definitive English guide on the subject. It’s also the most widely read outside Indonesia since Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue on plants completed by German botanist Georg Rumphius in 1690 — more than three centuries beforehand.

A holistic therapy based on the notion that if disease comes from nature then so must the cure, jamu covers a dazzling array of teas, tonics, pills, creams and powders to cure — and prevent — every ailment imaginable. The ingredients are by definition cheap, widely available and simple: nutmeg to treat insomnia, guava for diarrhea, lime to promote weight loss and basil to counter body odor.

Jamu has also been used to treat cancer. In her book, Jane-Beers writes of a traditional healer in the city of Jogjakarta who apparently cured what had been diagnosed as a terminal case of cervical cancer with a tea made of betel nut, Madagascar Prewinkle and mysterious ‘benala’ leaves. Combined with a strict soya bean diet, the patient was said to have made a full recovery in 18 months.

Sound farfetched? A 2011 study by Virginia Tech’s Department of Food Science and Technology on the soursop tree (the leaves of which are used to relive gout and arthritis in Indonesia) found evidence showing extracts from soursop fruit inhibit the growth of human breast cancer. Vincristine, one of 70 useful alkaloids identified in Madagascar Prewinkle, radically ups the survival rate of children with leukemia, while turmeric is being looked at as a treatment for Alzheimer’s.

“Western medicine tries to destroy cancer but at the same time it destroys elements of the body. Jamu helps the body produce its own antibodies to fight the cancer by itself,” says Bryan Hoare, manager at MesaStila, a wellness retreat in central Java that serves jamu shots with breakfast and employs a tabib — indigenous healer — for private consultations. “Coming from the earth, jamu also makes you feel good. When you take it you experience a positive feeling.”

But if jamu is the magic bullet, why isn’t better known in the West, where natural Asian medicines like India’s ayurvedic system and Chinese herbal healing have been growing in popularity for years?

The answer can be found on the streets of Indonesia, where jamu is consumed regularly by 49% of the population, according to the country’s Ministry of Health. Valued at $2.7 billion annually, the industry covers an incredibly wide gamut of products, from homemade tonics sold by street hawkers, to slimming powders, to cosmetics, to jamu for babies and postnatal care. Yet the bestselling in value terms are invariably the dodgiest: those claiming to boost sexual performance and or suppress appetite.

“Indonesians may well have been amused when Viagra was released in 1998,” Jane-Beers comments on the popularity of brands like Kuat Lekali (Strong Man), Kuku Bima (Nail of God) and Super Biul Erection Oil. “They have had their own remedies for years.”

Then there’s the association between jamu and white magic. Many indigenous healers insist on dispensing jamu on auspicious dates or in conjunction with animist spells that predate the arrival of Islam in the archipelago.

Mbah Ngatrulin, a Buddhist tabib I met in Ngadas, the highest village in Java, told me spells are the key and the jamu may as well be “mineral water.” It’s the kind of comment that prevents many GPs across Southeast Asia from endorsing jamu lest patients take them for quacks.

According to Charles Saerang, head of the Indonesian Jamu Entrepreneurs Association, the primary impediment to a worldwide jamu craze is that locally jamu products don’t meet international manufacturing standards. That hasn’t stopped entrepreneurs from buying raw herbal materials in Indonesia, processing them in India and Malaysia and selling them in the U.K. — a market Indonesian made jamu products can’t access. That’s a double whammy for Indonesia, which loses out on value added by third parties and the chance to promote the jamu brand name abroad.

It’s impossible to say when, or even if, jamu painkillers will be stocked at supermarkets and convenience stores in countries like the U.K. Yet inroads are already being laid by small businesses like the Origin Spa in Melbourne, Australia. There, highly skilled practitioners apply massage developed by 16th-century Indonesian royalty — the founders of modern jamu — with creams and oils containing turmeric, betel leaves, lives and crushed eggshells. There’s a minimum two-month waiting list for Origin’s five-day treatment that helps women regain their figures quickly, improve lactation and dispel wind, dizziness and aches and pains.

“It’s surprisingly popular with the Asian mums throughout Australia,” says partner Jessica Koh. “But it’s still unfamiliar to most of the locals.”

(TIME MAGAZINE)

— With reporting by Theo Manday / Ngadas  

He has already climbed 14 mountains and is now ready to climb more of the world’s highest peaks. To mark National Children’s Day on July 23, Arya will attempt to conquer the highest mountain in Europe, Russia’s Mount Elbrus. From there, he will go on to climb an even higher peak in the Himalayas to mark Universal Children’s Day on Nov. 20.

The young adventurer from Pemekasan, Madura, East Java has impressed mountain climbers worldwide with his feats and even sparked the interest of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. When he reaches the peak of Mount Elbrus on National Children’s Day, Arya will receive a call from the president to congratulate him on his achievements and commend him for inspiring the children of Indonesia to follow their dreams.

Reaching the peak of Elbrus is only the start of Arya’s adventures this year. In November he will attempt to climb Imja Tse, better known as Island Peak, a 6,189-meter peak in the Himalayas.

The first expedition, Ekspedisi Cahaya Indonesia (Light Expedition Indonesia), was developed by mountain-climbing instructor Budi Cayono to help Arya become the youngest person to ever conquer Mount Elbrus.

Budi said that Arya’s achievements encourage other children to get involved in sports and enjoy the outdoors. Arya’s father, Agus Sugiarto, said it is important for children to fulfill their dreams, and he hopes that “Arya’s dream comes true, to climb up this snowy mountain.”

First celebrated globally in 1953, Universal Children’s Day was established to promote children’s welfare worldwide and their contributions to society. By conquering Mount Elbus and Imja Tse, Arya hopes to set an example for children of all walks of life.

Arya’s little footprints have made their impression on many a mountain; he has been hiking since before he could walk. His father, Agus, said he used to carry him on mountain climbs when he was just 8 months old. But it was not long before Arya found his feet: “He was only 3 years old when he started to hike by himself and didn’t want to be carried anymore.”

In fact, Arya has climbed 14 tall mountains in Indonesia, the highest of them being Mount Semeru in Java in August 2010 when he was just 5, and then Mount Rinjani in Lombok last year.

He is the youngest person ever to conquer those mountains, and Agus said that these were the hardest mountains so far. But the treacherous peaks do not seem to faze Arya — last year the boy told the tabloid magazine Nyata that it was “nice to be able to reach the top of the mountain; I can see God’s creation.”

Mount Elbrus will be Arya’s hardest climb to date. Reaching heights of 5,642 meters, the icecap of Mount Elbrus feeds 22 glaciers. The inactive volcano is considered the world’s 10th most prominent mountain.

The highest mountain in Europe would certainly be a risk and a challenge to the most competent of mountain climbers. Yet Agus insists that Arya is in no danger.

“Mount Elbrus is safe enough for a kid his age to climb. The important thing is to always be careful, take notice and pay attention to weather conditions,” he says.

Budi, Arya’s instructor, will lead the expedition to Mount Elbrus and has trained Arya in preparation for the climb.

“I have full confidence that Arya can reach the top of Mount Elbrus on National Children’s Day,” he said. “I have seen him climb Rinjani and he was so happy doing it all the way to the top.”

“If you watch the way he climbs the mountains, you will be amazed, because Arya walks so excitedly,” he added. “Even if it is raining heavily and the terrain is slippery, he still carries on and enjoys the journey.”

Arya and his mountain-climbing team, which includes instructor Budi, father Agus, and a team of experienced climbers, will depart for Moscow on July 9. There they will meet a team of local guides and start their climb at the base of Mount Elbrus on July 15.

After reaching the summit and speaking to the president, Arya will begin his descent and arrive at the base camp on July 26.

To prepare for this ambitious expedition, Arya has undergone daily training. He runs every afternoon and goes mountain climbing every weekend. Budi insists that the mountain is safe to climb, as long as Arya is prepared.

“Mountain climbing is very safe, as long as climbers follow the rules and techniques — especially for young climbers — so they need a lot of preparation,” he says.

Budi says July’s expedition will take longer than it would for more experienced climbers, but believes safety comes before speed.

“Arya requires a longer adjustment [than adults], and his safety is the most important thing,” he said.

Fully aware of the risks, Arya knows how important safety is after coming into trouble while mountain climbing last year. The expedition, Ekspedisi Cahaya Merdeka (Independent Light Expedition) saw him conquer 12 mountains in only three months.

Yet some of the climbs were hindered by stormy weather. The climbers experienced heavy rainstorms and were forced to take shelter in their tents.

The rain prevented Arya from sticking to his original plans, yet Budi said Arya stayed strong.

“He was still fit and in a good condition when he completed the journey,” Budi said.

Taken from The Jakarta Globe

A KEHATI campus was a settlement and landscape where academic life is marked by a harmonious integration of people and education, said Ahmad Yani, a member of the IPB`s Research and Development Institute (LPPM) here Saturday.

“The communities in the villages surrounding the campus, the local culture and biodiversity must have one common purpose, namely the general welfare and conservation of biodiversity,” Ahmad said.

In the greening drive, the IPB would cooperate with national gas company PT PGN to plant as many as 10,000 trees around the campus.

The activity would be attended by the Rector of IPB, the Minister of Forestry Zulkifli Hasan, the Dean of Animal Husbandry Faculty, the Board of Directors of National Gas Company as well as the community and the academics.

Ahmad said the series of PGN-IPB KEHATI activities included basic study on an inventory and identification of potential land, socialization to the local people, training on organic cultivation and planting of trees for food and medicine as many as 10,000 seedlings.

The location of planting activities are in the IPB campus area of approximately 2.5 hectares, in nearby villages around the campus area of 7.5 hectares namely Benteng, Cibanteng, Cikarawang, Cihideung Ilir and Babakan sub village.

“The type of trees to be planted are among others Soursop, Breadfruit, Petai, bol guava, jackfruit, nutmeg, avocado, rambutan, mango and guava,” Ahmad noted.

He added this activity was very beneficial for the society including economics, health and the environment benefits.

Campus KEHATI is a mindset form realized through the harmony of the IPB ecosystem as a core and ring campus village.

The villages are empowered maximum to meet the needs of daily living for the KEHATI campus community and even to other people such as food, clean water, clean air, shelter, energy, medicine, education facilities conservation, ecotourism and others.

“Campus KEHATI aims to establish an unique and real model for stakeholders, provide and facilitate the learning process and development of knowledge in the real world, build an image and a model of integrated organic farming, humane, harmony with nature, realize the Indonesia miniature of bio-cultural-diversity in concrete form in the real world,” Ahmad explained.
(T.KR-LWA/HAJM/S012)
Editor: Priyambodo RH

Krakatau Mountain is located in Sunda strait between Java Island and Sumatra Island of Indonesia. It is a volcanic Mountain and has attracted people around the globe. The American Nature Magazine in 1946 wrote that when people in the world awed by the mighty blast of Atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. However, there was an explosion that was incomparably greater.

Krakatau Mountain blew up, on August 27, 1883, the whole world knew about it. The noise was head around 3,000 miles away; and the great waves of the explosion caused in the area reached the shores of four continents and were recorded 8,000 miles away. In addition, an air wave generated by the explosion traveled clear around the world, not only once but several times.

The Magazine also noted that the red-hot debris covered an area larger than France, to a depth of sometimes 100 feet on land. For nearly the year afterward the dust of the blast, blown upward for 30 miles, filled the high atmosphere over almost the whole globe. Even though there were no large towns within 100 miles of the volcano, approximately 36,000 people lost their lives.

The Magazine also wrote that the mighty explosion awed the sailors of the British Ship Charles Bal, who saw the Island shoot up over the horizon, “shaped like a pine tree brilliantly illuminated by electric flashes”. The sea was covered with innumerable fish, floating belly-up on the churning water. Long afterward came the noise- the loudest ever heard by human ears. “The concussions were deafening” wrote Lloyd’s agent in Batavia – the old name of Jakarta during Dutch colonial era.

In 1928, deep down under its rocky foundation a pocket of lava was seeing outlet for its energies. It broke the surface and showed its top, a flat ugly Island. Indigenous people called this new volcano “Anak Krakatau” or “Child of Krakatau”. Now many tourists from over the world could visit this Mountain Child from Jakarta the capital city of Indonesia. From Jakarta people could take ferry to Bandar Lampung of Sumatra Island, and take a boat to the Mountain.

By Ahmad Cholis Hamzah, alumni of University of London and Airlangga University Surabaya. Now is a lecturer of PERBANAS (Banking College) in Surabaya.

The two cities beat 24 other cities in the ministry’s Langit Biru (Blue Sky) program, which rated cities’ air quality based on four main considerations.

“The four main parameters were traffic management, the quality of fuel, the result of vehicle emission examination and the air quality on the main roads of each city,” deputy minister for environment pollution control MR Karliansyah said, as quoted by kompas.com.

Other additional parameters, she said, were the efforts of local administrations to reduce emissions and the urban planning of respective cities.

The ministry divided the 26 cities into the two categories of “metropolitan” and “big city”, each consisting of 14 and 12 cities, respectively.

Surabaya, scoring a cumulative index point of 7.21, was chosen as the city with the best air quality in the metropolitan category, followed by Medan, North Sumatra, in second and East Jakarta in third.

The big city category saw Surakarta coming out on top with a score of 8.42, beating second place Batam, Riau Islands, and third place Malang, East Java.

In the overall standings, the top three cities with the best air quality were Surakarta, Batam and Malang, while the bottom three spots were occupied by Semarang, Bekasi and West Jakarta.

Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya said that the program was considered a free promotion for cities and was hoped to push local administrations, companies and the general public to care for the air in their respective cities. (awd)

“UI was the only Indonesian university in the top 30 green universities around the globe,” the university said in a press statement as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday.

Universities from 42 countries participated in the “UI Greenmetric of World Universities 2011”, a global research project aimed at promoting environmental awareness.

The greenest campus on Earth was the University of Nottingham, Britain, according to the survey, followed by Northwestern University and the University of Connecticut, both in the US.

UI rector Gumilar Rusliwa Soemantri said that the research project had been used as a benchmark by many universities around the globe to improve the quality of their environments.

?(The Jakarta Post)

It is also an appropriate event to assess the involvement of developing countries like Indonesia, and particularly to understand whether their involvement in this UN climate conference will significantly contribute to a successful outcome.

Durban, hosting the 17th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will certainly pick up from where last year’s UN climate change negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, and the subsequent inter-sessional meetings left off.

But now the central challenge is to see whether governments involved in Durban will build on the progress achieved in Cancún or withdraw from this promising path and allow short-term national interests to shroud the negotiations. The Cancún Agreements form the basis of the largest collective effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to date, with national plans formulated under the banner of the UNFCCC, thus helping ensure accountability.

The package encompasses finance (with the Green Climate Fund and fast-start financing), the Cancún Adaptation Framework, a Technology Mechanism (to support action on mitigation and adaptation, and facilitate low-emission economies) and a formal incorporation of REDD+ (stating clearly that the framework to address deforestation is not only about reducing emissions but also halting and reversing forest loss). It is critical that governments involved in the negotiations, especially Indonesia, lock in the progress of the Cancún Agreements and push for their implementation.

Indonesia, as a resource-rich country striving to develop its economy, alleviate poverty and deal with climate change, has a lot at stake through its involvement in these climate change negotiations. For instance, it is critical to Jakarta that further implementation of the Cancún Adaptation Framework is negotiated. Ensuring the establishment of the Adaptation Committee is the first step toward this. The committee’s establishment will send a strong signal to vulnerable countries affected by climate change, including Indonesia, that governments around the world are serious about helping these countries confront the impacts of climate change.

Indonesia also needs to work hard with other parties to negotiate the realisation of fast-start finance and the Green Climate Fund. The former incorporates pledges made by developed countries to mobilise new and additional resources, amounting to US$30 billion for the period 2010–2012, to help mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. The Green Climate Fund will support projects, programs, policies and other activities in developing countries, using thematic funding windows. But with a number of developed countries facing short-term financial challenges, negotiations on finance are likely to be difficult. Specific to the Green Climate Fund, Indonesia must work together with other tropical-forest nations and like-minded countries to lobby for a special window for REDD+ under this fund.

Tropical-forest nations such as Indonesia have already piloted REDD+. The Indonesian government has produced several policies and strategies to guide its development and implementation, including the introduction of a moratorium on new permits to convert forests and peatlands to other land uses. But this may not be sufficient. Tackling deforestation involves different actors, sectors and layers of governments. These entities are known to have competing interests over land use. Without the provision of clear incentives, it is a Herculean task to persuade these actors to change the patterns of land use in Indonesia. A special window of funding for REDD+ at a global level would certainly provide more than a moral boost for tropical-forest nations to advance their REDD+ development at a national level and on the ground.

Adding to already tough negotiations on finance, Indonesia and other developing countries must also remind parties at the Durban conference about the importance of identifying sources of long-term finance, which are needed to cut GHG emissions and support the adaptation efforts of vulnerable countries. Climate change is going to be a long-term phenomenon and countries like Indonesia will suffer if mitigation and adaptation efforts are formulated only with a short time frame in mind.

And with the need for long-term commitment and action on climate change, Durban is crucial to producing an agreement — or at least a convincing direction — toward a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol. This is especially urgent as the Protocol’s first commitment period — which regulates developed countries’ commitment to cutting their GHG emissions — will end in 2012. The agreement on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol will also help persuade big emerging economies and other countries to set out a clear mandate for a comprehensive and legally binding agreement.

In Durban, the climate talks are at a crossroads. Governments, including that of Indonesia, and other parties have a long road ahead if they are to demonstrate their seriousness about addressing dangerous climate change. The costs of climate change — socially, environmentally and economically — are high. A delay to act will prove ruinous. Indonesia’s delegation has no choice but to commit to continuous hard work and provide real leadership to guarantee a successful outcome in Durban’s climate negotiations.

Fitrian Ardiansyah is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University and the recipient of the Australian Leadership Award and Allison Sudradjat Award.

“If you get in there [the Mekongga mountain range], there is no guarantee you can get out,” said John A. Trochet, a field ornithologist at the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology at the University of California, Davis. “That’s the truth.”

Since 2009, scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the Ministry of Forestry and the Bandung Institute of Technology have collaborated with American scientists from the University of California’s Davis, Berkeley and San Francisco campuses to survey one of the world’s most biodiverse areas.

Their destination, however, is not an easy one to reach.

“We have to cross a river six times and then it’s a very steep climb to the remnants of an old logging road,” said Trochet, who has broken a finger and hurt his ankles on past treks.

“We follow the logging road, and in many places it’s a wall on one side and a vertical drop on the other,” he said. “In many, many places the logging road has washed away over the years. It’s just very difficult.”

Sometimes more than 80 porters must assist the scientists with their equipment and all of the samples they collect as they head up and down mountains.

“The reason this project is so big is because we are doing everything from plants to birds to microbes,” said Alan T. Hitch, assistant curator at the same institution at UC Davis. “These expeditions in modern times don’t really exist anymore.”

A wealth of new species

It has been about 80 years since the last extensive survey of the area was conducted.

“There are so many insects that are undescribed and so many undescribed microbes,” said Rosichon Ubaidillah, head entomologist at LIPI.

Despite difficult conditions and weeks of Indomie on the menu, the scientists smile with excitement as they describe expeditions that may be among the last of their kind.

Several trips have yielded samples from different elevation classes, many of which still need to be identified.

“Potentially on the vertebrae side, we have at least a few new species of frogs, definitely a new species of bat, probably a couple new species of shrews, and maybe a new subspecies of rodent,” Hitch said.

More than 1,500 vertebrae specimens have been collected, he said, and fish and lizard discoveries may also be classified as new species.

On the plant side of the expedition, 109 species have been collected including a new orchid and a new begonia species.

“This is a new record for us, said Elizabeth Widjaja, a member of the botany division at LIPI, who has potentially found a new genus of bamboo. “For scientific purposes it is very important.”

In addition to the discovery of the Garuda wasp, named after the national symbol of Indonesia, there have been new discoveries of a bright blue sawfly, a long-tongued bee, and numerous flies and tiny wasps, which scientists are currently in the process of describing.

“We estimate that there might be as many as 100,000 different insect species in the region we’re working in, perhaps half of which are new to science, waiting to be discovered and described,” Lynn S. Kimsey, an entomology professor and the director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis, wrote in an e-mail to the Jakarta Globe.

Indonesia’s national collection has gained three species of birds from the expeditions. And that’s only the beginning.

“Out of 80-odd different species of yeasts that we’ve isolated, 37 of them are new to science,” said Kyria Boundy-Mills, a curator at the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection at UC Davis.

Cures in the making

Although studies are still in their infant stages, scientists are excited about their potential yields.

“We are finding potential activity in the plants and microbes that we are collecting in Mekongga — things that have potential for anti-cancer activity, potential effects on the nervous system, they might be new pain relievers or things for treating addictions,” Boundy-Mill said. “We are finding some very good candidates.”

But the scientists worry about protecting the watershed area, as well as the plants and animals of Sulawesi, which, as Trochet put it, “are to a tremendous degree found nowhere else.”

“This area has been logged. It is definitely not pristine rain forest,” Hitch said.

Logging officially stopped in the early 1990s and the area became protected forest, but illegal logging still occurs.

“We have to ask the local people not to go to the forest and do logging again,” Elizabeth said.

Rosichon added that establishing profitable industries in cocoa and coconut plantations could help the region turn away from illegal logging.

“For the people there, it’s easy to just go to the forest and take something from there. We would like to develop an effective biodiversity conservation strategy,” Rosichon said.

Mining interests in the area are also raising concerns.

“Local mining is already open,” Elizabeth said. “Not in the area we visited, but after that on the way to Lasusua. It belongs to Antam [mining company].”

A rise in mining activity could threaten Sulawesi’s biosphere.

“We worry about that [mining],” Rosichon said, adding that the government recently released new regulations to stop the mining in 2015.

“The mining is getting crazy … They are trying to get more and more raw material before they have to stop.”

Despite threats to the region, Rosichon remains optimistic, and the team hopes to approach the government in Jakarta with a proposal to create a larger protective area.

“Hopefully the research from this project will contribute significantly to the broad range of issues, not only for the knowledge of biodiversity in the area, but for conservation and sustainable use of the resources in Sulawesi, and also for the whole country,” Rosichon said.

Grant funding for the project from the US National Institutes of Health will end in 2013.

The scientists are hoping to expand the scope of their research past 2013 with additional grant funding.

“Why should Mekongga be special? The prospect of other areas having similar riches is extremely high,” Trochet said.

In Bosnia, six years ago in 2005, a hill named Visocica gained fame. An archaeology enthusiast and businessman, Semir Osmanagic, found unusual appearance on the shape of the 213-meter high hill in April 2005. A series of excavations were carried out to further answer the assumption. He claimed that a number of covert rock incriptions were spotted. Final excavation brought to light that the pyramid located in the hill was larger that the Giza.

Archaeologists were against the finding. However, Osmanagic was not hesitant. “They’re just jealous,” he told LiveScience. “They have taught students that the ancient Bosnians were cavemen. And out of a sudden, a complex man-made structure is found.”

Is the finding in Garut inspired by the similar discovery in Bosnia? Member of Ancient Catastrophic Disaster Team, Iwan Sumule, said no to the posit. “The Garut pyramid was found by chance as the team looked into faults and the annals of past earthquakes,” he told VIVAnews.

Iwan said earthquakes are considered recurring events with periodic time, including volcanoes. “It is believed that the extinct human civilization was due to past disasters like earthquakes and volcano eruptions.” With regard to the Garut pyramid, various scientific assessments over the finding, including carbon dating, show that the structure is man-made. Earlier, Directorate General of History and Archaeology said Indonesia may have pyramids.

Source: vivanews

The presidential tree planting ceremony was the signal for the simultaneous execution of the same activity by at least 8,820 people including servicemen and police officers, boy and girl scouts, and students.

Indonesia has set a target of planting one billion trees under a program called “One Billion Indonesian Trees for The World” (OBIT ) being implemented to help reduce greenhouse gases.

The OBIT program is Indonesia`s concrete contribution to the world to deal with the impacts of climate change and global warming.

Globally, more than 12 billion trees have now been planted in 193 countries under the Billion Tree Campaign, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Inspired by the work of the late Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, UNEP had initiated a world-wide Billion Tree Campaign aimed to improve the quality of life in communities across the world through the multiple benefits provided by trees.

These include tackling climate change through the sequestration of carbon, contributing to local economies through products such as timber and providing valuable ecosystem services such as soil regulation, erosion control and cultural values.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan is optimistic that Indonesia will be able to surpass the target on January 31, 2012, as during 2011 a total of 827 million trees were planted.

“Until now, we have accomplished 80 percent of the tree planting program. I am optimistic the target will be achieved in late December and it will even be exceeded in 2012,” the minister said in his remarks at the nation-wide tree planting ceremony at Merah Putih Hill, Sentul.

On the occasion, Yudhoyono planted a Manglid (Manglietia glauca) tree, First Lady Ani Yudhoyono a (Gnetum gnemon) tree, Vice President Boediono a Suren (Toona sureni) tree, and his spouse, Herawati Boediono, a Salam (Syzygium polyanthum) tree.

After the tree planting, the president presented awards to provincial governors and districts head who had won a one billion tree planting contest in 2010, and a greening and “Wana Lestari” nature conservation competition in 2011.

The country managed to plant 104 million trees of the 100 million target in 2008, and 250 million trees of the 230 million target in 2009.

Last year, the total tree planting realization jumped to 1.7 billion trees from the target of one billion since the program was launched in 2007.

The Forestry Ministry has allocated funds amounting to Rp3 trillion to support the program of planting more than 1.7 billion trees across the country this year.

At present the country has a stock of 1.7 billion seeds of which 600 million are kept by the forestry ministry, 500 million by state forestry companies and 600 million by timber estate companies.

The planting of one billion trees was started on February 1, 2011 and would be completed on January 31, 2012, according to Minister Zulkifli.

A number of private forestry companies have also supported the program.

President Commissioner of PT. Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) Tony Wenas, for instance, said his company fully supported the Indonesian Tree Planting Day (HMPI) and the National Tree Planting Month 2011.

Tony said his company had three satellite nurseries in Kerinci, Pelalawan, and Baserah, in Sumatra, with a production capacity of 200 million seedlings annually. RAPP was planting around 160 million trees annually, he said.

Earlier, the forestry minister said activities under the national tree planting movement had been carried out in 23 provinces this year to help deal with forest degradation in the country.

The tree planting movement would be intensified in every district by 2013, the minister said recently.

“Thank God, public awareness about the need to plant trees has grown. A number of regions have tree planting programs. Hopefully, the movement will reach the district level by 2013,” the minister said when visiting a One Million Seedling Garden belonging to Budiasi Foundation at Sentul, Bogor.

The tree planting movement is carried out with the support of the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) especially in conservation forest areas, in order to prevent illegal logging activities.

The involvement of servicemen in the tree planting program was crucial to help protect the trees from irresponsible people who came to uproot trees, the forestry ministry`s Natural Conservation and Forest Protection Director General Darori said in Jakarta Monday.

He explained that if there were 350 trees having an average diameter of 36 centimeters on a one-hectare area, the area will have a carbon sink capacity of up to 147.84 tons per hectare.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when observing Indonesia`s Tree Planting Day and National Tree Planting Month in West Java, on Dec. 8, 2009, asked the nation to plant 4 billion trees by 2020 and 9.2 billion trees by 2050.

“If we can achieve half of the target, the trees can absorb 46 billion carbon by 2050. The figure is indeed pessimistic, but if we could plant more trees, much more CO2 could be captured, and this will become our contribution to the world,” the president said.

At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, in September 2009, Yudhoyono pledged to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020 using the state budget and by 41 percent if developed nations gave the financial support to do so.

Earlier this year, the head of state signed a Presidential Instruction on a deforestation moratorium to help curb the impact of climate change and preserve the remaining tropical forests and biodiversity in it.

(F001/A014)

Researchers first announced the discovery of the hobbits in 2004, and the remains have engendered intense interest and controversy ever since. The hobbits lived on the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago, alongside giant rats, diminutive elephant relatives called stegodonts and fearsome Komodo dragons. The new work, carried out by Henneke Meijer of the Smithsonian Institution and her colleagues at the Smithsonian and the National Research and Development Center for Archaeology in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows that a great many birds also called the island home back when the hobbits reigned, as recently as 17,000 years ago. Meijer presented the results on November 4 at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Meijer looked at hundreds of bird bones unearthed from the cave, called Liang Bua. Among the remains were an abundance of swiftlets and songbirds, which may have been hunted by barn owls found at the site. She also identified some water birds that indicate that swamps, mud plains and lakes existed near the cave. Today a river called the Wae Racang lies some 200 meters away and 30 meters below Liang Bua, but the presence of these aquatic birds at the site adds to a growing body of evidence that the river once flowed closer to the cave. The bones of these birds exhibit marks inflicted by raptors, which may have carried their quarry into the cave to get away from competitors. “The number of species we have for birds at Liang Bua is much higher than that of any other group,” Meijer remarks. She says this high diversity of birds is indicative of an ecologically rich environment that would have been good for humans.

Perhaps the most intriguing discoveries among the bird bones from the cave are the remains of a vulture and a giant marabou stork that died there more than 25,000 years ago. The vulture closely resembles the white-headed vulture that lives in Africa today; the stork, a giant relative of the modern marabou stork, would have stood nearly two meters tall, towering over the hobbits, who were only around one meter tall. Because modern marabou storks and vultures primarily scavenge instead of hunt, Meijer surmises that the Flores stork and vulture obtained food this way, too. But what were they doing in the cave? “The only reason why the stork and vulture would be in Liang Bua is because they were drawn to carcasses,” Meijer asserts. She suspects that carcasses of the baby stegodonts that the hobbits hunted and brought back to the cave attracted the birds.

Meijer notes that in Africa, Marabou storks and vultures work together when it comes to scavenging large herbivores. The vultures depend on the storks to signal that the dangerous predators (lions, hyenas and the like) are gone and the storks, in turn, rely on the vultures to open up the carcasses with their sharp talons and beaks (see video below). On Flores, the scene might have played out somewhat differently. Flores did not have any large predatory mammals like the ones found in Africa today—possibly as a result of a phenomenon known as island dwarfing in which mammals larger than rabbits tend to evolve small body size as an adaptation to the limited resources available on small islands. But it did have Komodo dragons and hobbits equipped with stone tools. It’s entirely possible, Meijer says, that dragons, hobbits, storks and vultures were competing for Stegodon parts, although this remains a speculative scenario. (Likewise it is theoretically possible that the giant stork fed on hobbits, but evidence of such an encounter has yet to surface.) Going forward, Meijer plans to test the hypothesis that scavenging birds were drawn to carcasses in the cave by looking for more of these birds among the Liang Bua bones.

source : blogs.scientificamerican.com

Coba deh kita sedikit mempelajari pentingnya air buat kehidupan kita. Kalo kita jalan-jalan ke negara tetangga nih, kita bakal tahu kalau air itu diirit-irit banget, sampe-sampe toiletnya saja tidak memakai semprotan air, cuma tisu! Belum lagi mereka menadah air hujan agar bisa dipakai untuk menyiram tanaman, mennyiram toilet, dan keperluan lain di luar sumber air minum.

Berdasarkan ilustrasi diatas, maka kita harusnya mensyukuri bahwa Indonesia diberkahi curah hujan yang cukup tinggi, terlepas dari perubahan iklim global yang kadang-kadang membuat kita bingung kapan hujan kapan panas, *gila!

Sumber daya air harus dikelola secara secara terpadu, utuh dan berkelanjutan agar kelestariannya tetap terjaga. Namun demikian untuk mewujudkan hal tersebut juga ada permasalahan dan tantangan seperti stres air. Nah lho, bukan cuma kita aja kan yang bisa stres? Konsep stres air menurut World Business Council for Sustainable Development adalah situasi di mana tidak cukup air untuk semua kebutuhan, baik itu untuk pertanian, industri, atau yang lainnya. Permintaan air telah melebihi suplai di beberapa bagian di dunia seiring dengan populasi dunia terus meningkat, yang mengakibatkan peningkatan permintaan terhadap air bersih. Perhatian terhadap kepentingan global dalam mempertahankan air untuk pelayanan ekosistem telah bermunculan, terutama sejak dunia telah kehilangan lebih dari setengah lahan basah bersama dengan nilai pelayanan ekosistemnya. Ekosistem air tawar yang tinggi biodiversitasnya saat ini terus berkurang lebih cepat dibandingkan dengan ekosistem laut ataupun darat.

Pada dasarnya, pembangunan bidang sumber daya air dilakukan sebagai sebuah upaya untuk memberikan akses terhadap air kepada seluruh masyarakat secara adil. Selain itu, pengendalian daya rusak air juga merupakan tujuan pembangunan bidang sumber daya air agar kehidupan masyarakat yang aman dan sejahtera dapat tercipta. Hal tersebut sesuai dalam Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia Tahun 1945, pasal 33 ayat (3) yang menyebutkan “Bumi dan air dan kekayaan alam yang terkandung di dalamnya dikuasai oleh Negara dan dipergunakan untuk sebesar-besar kemakmuran rakyat”.

Sebagai payung hukum pelaksanaan pembangunan di bidang sumber daya air, telah diterbitkan Undang-Undang No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air sebagai pengganti Undang-Undang No. 11 Tahun 1974 tentang Pengairan yang telah mencerminkan perwujudan pelaksanaan reformasi kebijakan di bidang sumber daya air. Melalui perubahan tersebut diharapkan peraturan perundangan terkait dengan sumber daya air dapat sejalan dengan tuntutan perkembangan keadaan sumber daya air dan perubahan dalam kehidupan masyarakat saat ini. Tidak seperti Undang-Undang No. 11 Tahun 1974 yang lebih condong ke aspek pendayagunaan sumber daya air, Undang-Undang No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air telah mengatur beberapa aspek pokok pengelolaan sumber daya air seperti konservasi sumber daya air, pendayagunaan sumber daya air, pengendalian daya rusak air dan sistem informasi sumber daya air. Konservasi sumber daya air ditujukan untuk menjaga keberadaan daya dukung, daya tampung, dan fungsi sumber daya air sedangkan pendayagunaan sumber daya air ditujukan untuk memanfaatkan sumber daya air secara berkelanjutan dengan mengutamakan pemenuhan kebutuhan pokok kehidupan masyarakat secara adil.

Selain itu pengendalian daya rusak air ditujukan untuk melindungi keamanan masyarakat dari dampak bahaya bencana banjir sementara pengelolaan sistem informasi sumber daya air dilakukan untuk mendukung pengelolaan sumber daya air itu sendiri.

Selain itu juga telah diterbitkan empat Peraturan Pemerintah (PP) dari sepuluh PP turunan UU No. 7 Tahun 2004 tentang Sumber Daya Air sebagai dasar hukum/pedoman yang lebih teknis/rinci dalam pelaksanaan pengelolaan sumber daya air, yaitu; (i) PP No. 16 Tahun 2005 tentang Pengembangan Sistem Penyediaan Air Minum; (ii) PP No. 20 Tahun 2006 tentang Irigasi; (iii) PP No. 42 Tahun 2008 tentang Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air; (iv) PP No. 43 Tahun 2008 tentang Air Tanah; dan (v) PP No. 37 Tahun 2010 tentang Bendungan. Beberapa peraturan perundangan yang telah disahkan sebagai pedoman operasional dalam pelaksanaan koordinasi/pengelolaan sumber daya air, yaitu: (i) Perpres No. 12 Tahun 2008 tentang Dewan Sumber Daya Air; (ii) Keppres No. 6 Tahun 2009 tentang Pembentukan Dewan Sumber Daya Air; (iii) Perpres No. 33 Tahun 2011 tentang Kebijakan Nasional Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Air; dan (iv) Kepmen PU No. 390/KPTS/M/2007 tentang Penentuan Status Daerah Irigasi serta 4 (empat) Permen PU lainnya.

Dengan diterbitkannya Undang-Undang No. 17 Tahun 2003 tentang Keuangan Negara dan Undang-Undang No. 25 Tahun 2004 tentang Sistem Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional (SPPN), sistem perencanaan pembangunan dan pengelolaan anggaran negara juga ikut mengalami perubahan. Namun demikian, dalam pelaksanaan pembangunan nasional, perencanaan menjadi sangat penting untuk saling berkaitan dengan penganggaran karena harus disusun dengan memperhatikan ketersediaan sumber daya yang terbatas. Dengan demikian anggaran yang dimanfaatkan dapat dipertanggungjawabkan sesuai dengan skala prioritas pembangunan, kebijakan, program, dan kegiatan dalam rangka peningkatan pelayanan kepada masyarakat.

Pada tahun 2010 pemerintah menerbitkan Peraturan Presiden No. 5 Tahun 2010 tentang Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional (RPJMN) Tahun 2010 – 2014 dengan salah satu kebijakan pembangunan yang ditempuh adalah pembangunan infrastruktur nasional yang memiliki daya dukung dan daya gerak terhadap pertumbuhan ekonomi dan sosial yang berkeadilan dan mengutamakan kepentingan masyarakat umum di seluruh bagian negara kepulauan Republik Indonesia dengan mendorong partisipasi masyarakat. Di bidang sumber daya air, salah satu yang menjadi kebijakan adalah pengendalian dan pengurangan dampak banjir dan tanah longsor secara struktural dan non struktural, terutama pada wilayah berpenduduk padat, wilayah strategis dan pusat-pusat perekonomian. Kebijakan ini sangat strategis karena mendukung berkurangnya tingkat resiko dan periode genangan banjir pada wilayah berpenduduk padat, wilayah strategis dan pusat-pusat perekonomian. Untuk memastikan visi misi Presiden yang dituangkan dalam Prioritas Nasional RPJMN 2010-2014 terpenuhi, maka Pemerintah juga menerbitkan Instruksi Presiden No. 1 Tahun 2010 tentang Percepatan Pelaksanaan Prioritas Pembangunan Nasional.
Tapi kita tidak bisa hanya mengandalkan pemerintah untuk melestarikan air. Perlu peran serta aktif dari kita semua agar air tidak  berlebih yang bikin rumah kita banjir, juga tidak kurang yang membuat kita akhirnya gak bisa mandi, juga kualitas air yang tetap terjaga supaya kita tidak selalu beli air mineral.

Lalu bagaimana sih cara kita bisa melestarikan air? Tidak sulit sih sebenarnya; setidaknya dimulai aja dari hal-hal kecil dari kita bangun tidur sampai tidur lagi. Misalnya jangan mandi di bathub, pakai saja yang siraman, dan jangan lama-lama, maksimal 4 menit untuk mandi. Ada lho alat semacam jam weker buat ngingetin kita kalo mandinya kelamaan, dan standarnya 4 menit itu. Kalo di jalan jangan buang sampah di parit atau melemparkan pembalut atau semacamnya itu di sungai. Kalau ada tetangga yang buang sampah sembarangan tolong diingatkan, jangan ditiru! Bayangin aja kalau sampai menyumbat kanal air dan akhirnya banjir, sayur-sayuran dan kotoran yang kita buang malah balik lagi ke rumah kita secara berjamaah, kan repot juga. Dan kalo nanti kita sudah kaya, jangan membangun rumah atau villa di daerah resapan air atau di daerah hulu, karena selain membuat daya serap air berkurang yang berakibat air turun aja ke daerah hilir, juga bisa menimbulkan longsor.

Nah, kalau sudah mulai sadar, yuk kita belajar lagi bagaimana mengelola dan melestarikan air sebagai sumber kehidupan anak cucu kita nantinya.

Ditulis untuk Good News From Indonesia oleh Dimas Kurnia Aditiawan

Sumber foto: flickr.com

WWF and The Nature Conservancy worked with the two governments to develop this innovative conservation financing approach.

The forest land is rich in wildlife and an important source for securing carbon. It is also a place that many local communities rely on for their livelihoods because it provides them with jobs and firewood to heat their homes.

How does this work?
Through the agreement, carried out under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, Indonesia’s debt to the U.S. of $28.5 million is “swapped” for investment over the next five to seven years in three Heart of Borneo forest districts.

The U.S. government is responsible for reducing Indonesia’s debt obligations by $20 million. WWF and The Nature Conservancy each provided $2 million. Because of the timing of the debt payments, the actual amount available for forest protection in Indonesia is $28.5 million.

Funding from this swap will help protect two WWF priority areas:

Kutai Barat District, where work will focus on protecting remaining natural forest, by converting degraded land into palm oil plantations
Kapuas Hulu, an area between Danau Sentarum and Betung Kerihun national parks that, if connected, would provide a place for orangutans and other wildlife to roam freely and for forest carbon to be stored

Why is this debt-swap important?
The debt-swap will provide many benefits to the region including:

funds invested in critical biodiversity conservation projects, such as protected areas and habitat corridors
strengthened role of communities in natural resource management through new projects and community managed areas
improved governance of natural resources through sustainable forestry practices and certification
enhancement of the land use planning process to minimize the impacts from unsustainable agriculture

source : www.worldwildlife.org

posted in Good News From Indonesia by Ratna Suwendiyanti

More than 50 new species have been discovered off the coast of Indonesia, including small, slender-bodied sharks that “walk” with their fins along coral reefs, researchers announced. In addition to the two types of walking epaulette sharks, the researchers discovered 22 species of other fish, 20 species of hard corals, and 8 kinds of shrimp all believed new to science. The new species were found during two recent expeditions to the Bird’s Head Seascape, a distinctive peninsula on the northwestern end of Indonesia’s Papua province that is already renowned for its marine biodiversity.

“It’s an incredible place in both the number of species and the abundance of marine wildlife,” said Roger McManus, senior director for global marine conservation at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Conservation International, which led the expeditions. The Missouri-size region is home to more than 1,200 types of reef fishes and nearly 600 species of hard corals. Whales, sea turtles, crocodiles, giant clams, manta rays, and dugongs also ply the peninsula’s waters.

“We knew this was an area important for marine diversity,” said Sebastian Troeng, director of regional marine programs for Conservation International. “We hadn’t expected that over 50 new species would be found in those two surveys. It is quite amazing.”

New Species

The two new shark species are particularly exciting, Troeng says. The sharks are about 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 meters) long and walk along the shallow reef flats on their fins, preying on shrimp, crabs, snails, and small fish. “If they get spooked they can swim away, but the thing that stands out is their walking over the bottom,” Troeng said.

Biologists studying these sharks suggest they could serve as models for the first animals that moved from marine environments onto land, he adds. McManus is fascinated by the mantis shrimp, which look and behave like praying mantises, insects whose arms flick out to catch their prey. Scientists have clocked the shrimps’ arms moving at 23 miles (37 kilometers) a second as they snare small fish and other reef critters. The speed and force has broken aquarium glass.

“That’s a lot of power, by the way,” McManus said. “These guys are the terrorists of the coral reef … They are really powerful, dangerous animals.” Among the new fish species are several types of “flasher” wrasses, named for the brilliant pink, yellow, blue, and green colors males display to entice females to mate.

All the new species were discovered in less than six weeks, which McManus says is a remarkable feat. That many are sizable creatures like fish is even more impressive. “Fish are not unknown groups,” he said. “To find so many really says something about the uniqueness of this place.”

Isolated Trove

Low human population density and surrounding deep and cold waters keep the peninsula isolated and protected, which likely helps explain the rich biodiversity, McManus says. However, the region faces an increasing threat from the use of dynamite and cyanide to catch fish, as well as from pollution from nearby mining and logging operations. McManus says the region’s local government recently approached Conservation International for help in developing a program to protect the region’s rich marine diversity. “This is a wonderful resource for the people of the region and far into the future, if taken care of, will continue to generate resources for them,” he said.