Palm | Kelapa Sawit

The United Nations has proclaimed 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity.  Therefore  Hong Kong Post presents the commemorative stamp set of four special stamps featuring endemic species including the Hong Kong paradise fish Macropodus hongkongensis, Romer's tree frog (the smallest frog species found in Hong Kong), Sinopora hongkongensis (a plant first discovered in Tai Mo Shan which is new to science) and Fukienogomphus choifongae (a dragonfly first discovered in Wu Kau Tang which is also new to science).The stamps were issued on June 30, 2010.

Macropodus hongkongensis is a new species  endemic in Hong Kong and should be treated as an endangered species.   Compare with the related species  Macropodus concolor,  Macropodus hongkongensis have some discrepancies like the scale pigmentation,  appearance overall, the pelvic fin rays .

Macropodus hongkongensis has black spots on the top of the head and may have blotches on the back (around the anterior portion of the doral fin). In addition, it has a thin black margin along the anal fin. These characters are lacking in Macropodus  concolor. An additional distinguishing feature is the pelvic fin rays: the first soft pelvic fin ray of Macropodus. hongkongensis is white; it is red in Macropodus  concolor. Furthermore, Macropodus  hongkongensis has an opercular spot that Macropodus  concolor lacks or expresses indistinctly. There are also subtle differences in the scale pigmentation.

As known, the two species are geographically different, and may have evolved independently from populations of the widely distributed Macropodus opercularis in Vietnam (concolor) and southern China (Macropodus hongkongensis).

 

Romer's Tree Frog (Liuixalus romeri) is a species of frog endemic to Hong Kong. With an average snout-vent length of 1.5 - 2.5 cm, it is the smallest amphibian recorded in the territory.The habitat of the frog is well-wooded areas near a small stream or other water source suitable for breeding. The creature usually sits on low bushes, buries itself in fallen leaves, or rests on bare ground. The frog has been recorded solely from 4 of the outlying islands in Hong Kong, namely Lantau Island, Lamma Island, Po Toi Island and Chek Lap Kok.

Over 200 individuals of the species were rescued from Chek Lap Kok in 1992, before the construction of the Hong Kong International Airport. The captives were bred successfully and the offspring were released into 8 selected sites in Hong Kong Island and New Territories. The frogs in 7 of the sites survived. Surprisingly, a very small number of the creatures also survives in Chek Lap Kok.

As an endangered species, Romer's Tree Frog is protected under the law of Hong Kong (Wild Animals Protection Ordinance, Cap. 170). Part of Ngong Ping in Lantau, a site that supports the largest population of the frog, has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in May 1999.

Sinopora hongkongensis is plant tree  which can grow up to 16 m tall with  branchlets  are reddish brown.  Petiole slender, 1-2 cm, flat adaxially; leaf blade abaxially pale green and glaucous. Flowers are greenish yellow, consist of  6 tepals , densely tomentose. Style tomentose at base. Fruit yellowish brown, to 4 cm in diam., with persistent accrescent tepals at base when young. This species is very rare and its conservation status is Critically Endangered (CR B2ab(v)). It occurs in the Country Park of Hong Kong under statutory protection.

Fukienogomphus choifongae, first discovered at Wu Kau Tang in the northeastern New Territories in 2004 and then was identified as a species new to science

What else can you do? Support legislation that supports floral biodiversity and pollinators. The week of June 20 was Pollinator Week that celebrated with events around the U.S. including a briefing that was held in conjunction with the Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus (CP2C). Created in the House by co-chairs Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Timothy V. Johnson (R-IL) the caucus was to increase understanding of the importance of pollinators. Rep. Johnson stated:

By planting more native plants and reducing road side mowing, the bill hopes to save money and to preserve the biodiversity of the land surrounding the roads and highways. Want more information on how to support pollinators? Visit the Pollinator Partnership, North American Pollinator Protection Campaign

The technology that has enabled our species to control and eliminate other species is only obtainable at the high price of pollution. The burning of fossil fuels and use of petrochemicals and heavy metals has led to the increase of “greenhouse gases” as well as the contamination of water. Although species can respond to the changing climate it is the speed of the increase and the human barriers such as roads, cities, and agricultural areas that will not allow species to move before destruction occurs. The increase in population will increase the demands on the earth’s resources of land, water, mineral, plants, and air. (Otten)

Blog Author: Carol Staats

Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) often attempt to undertake studies to demonstrate the impact of deforestation on climate change or biodiversity losses in collaboration with universities in order to establish credibility in the final reports generated. However, many of these studies are not based on valid experimental designs or sound methodology.

In studying deforestation activities, for example, the outcome may change drastically if you choose and pick specific cut-off periods and regions as these will highlight and include only selected data while oppressing other data sets. The deliberate omission of data may then lead to possible biasness and potentially wrong conclusions. If the study’s intention is truly to evaluate a very specific narrow objective, then the conclusions should be restricted to the limits set initially and should not be generalized to support claims over broad and multi-causal topics like deforestation or global warming.

This blog had earlier commented on the fallacy associated when study results are generalized beyond the restricted objectives of the researchers. For e.g. , a study on biodiversity in an oil palm plantation can have ‘unfavourable’ out come if it is compared to biodiversity in virgin forest but it will have ‘favourable’ effect if compared to biodiversity of other agricultural areas. It is common for WENGOs to use such studies to conclude that biodiversity in oil palm plantations is less than that in virgin forest when the logical comparison should be with biodiversity existing in other agricultural crops as oil palm is an agricultural crop. Biodiversity in an oil palm plantation should be compared with that of forest plantation as oil palm is a forest plantation crop.

A recent study using satellite imaging analysis was quoted to have found a high rate of deforestation between 1980 and 2000 period, and the result was (wrongly) interpreted to mean that such a deforestation rate will cause global warming. Since most of the deforestation occurred in the developing countries, these countries were therefore linked to the cause of global warming. In the minds of the WENGOs, this is a clear case supporting their demands for no deforestation and an attempt to stop further development in developing countries. As a result of these type of restricted studies, ministers and government opinion leaders in the EU are convinced that deforestation is bad and therefore it must be stopped at all costs without realising that such studies are biased by the selective use of specific period when developing countries were indeed developing their agricultural industries. Conclusions derived from such studies are not considered valid by government leaders, opinion makers and NGOs in the developing countries.

For these developing countries, development is an important component of economic survival and they aspire to use the examples set in the developed countries as their model of development. They would disagree if developed countries attempt to dictate on the need to curb deforestation especially if this is without any substantial compensation. Furthermore, many realize that developed countries became developed by clearing their forests to grow industrial crops and establish other industrial activities on their (previously forested) land assets. Therefore, a deforestation moratorium has to be linked to an adequate compensation mechanism so as not to stifle the development needs of developing countries.

If deforestation and forest cover are important, the trend set by the developed countries with regard to the extent of forest cover should form the basis for future guidelines. Forest cover is a reversible process of deforestation and aforestation. A developed country can re-establish its forest area to similar high standards that it desires other developing countries to have. Therefore, a developed country that has only 10 to 20 % forest cover with no serious aforestation trend and policy has no moral right to call on developing countries with a larger percentage of forest cover to start aforestation programmes or to stop deforestation without offering adequate compensation.

The developing countries have a sovereign right to develop their land for economic growth in order to become developed nations in future. If the period on which the deforestation study is undertaken is extended back by 100 or 200 years, then it will be obvious that deforestation mainly took place in the developed countries and they would be implicated as the main contributor of global warming through massive cumulative deforestation. Selective studies designed to omit consideration of past emissions was cleverly deployed to show that the USA and EU emit less carbon as compared to developing countries as only present level of deforestation was compared. They do not include the massive deforestation and emission of CO2 in the past which have accumulated in the atmosphere, causing global temperature to increase gradually over the last 100 years.

The other real major flaw in the WENGOs’ argument is to ignore the massive contribution (more than 80%) of the fossil fuel sector toward global CO2 emission and global warming. Most of the emission during the last 200 years was from fossil fuel emission of industrial activities in developed countries. Deforestation which occurred mostly in developed countries during this period was estimated to have contributed about 17 % of the emission and global warming effect.

There was no analysis to show conclusively that the 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia representing 0.1% of global agricultural areas have contributed to significant global rise in temperature even if it is assumed that these oil palm areas were originally forested land. Logically that 0.1 % of world agricultural land used for growing oil palm would not show any significant effect on global warming compared to the use of fossil fuel and the past deforestation in developed countries, as 0.1 % is far too small to have any significant effect. Even tripling the oil palm planted area to 0.3% of world agricultural land would not have any significant effect on global warming.

On the other hand, should oil palm plantations not be expanded, this will cause 10 times more forest land to be converted for growing soyabean crop to meet future world shortages in oils and fats supply as argued in my previous article. Because of the potential deforestation avoidance effects of palm oil by a factor of 10 times, it would clearly imply that the more palm oil produced to meet world shortages, much more forest areas will be saved from being cleared to plant lower yielding oilseed crops. Deforestation studies which ignore these effects will grossly underestimate the global warming mitigation effects of palm oil and researchers conducting such biased studies will do injustice by masking the excellent potential capacity of the oil palm to mitigate global warming.

The biased results of studies on deforestation have contributed to the grave mistake of focusing world attention on deforestation in developing countries while ignoring the real culprit: the huge emission of CO2 contributed by the fossil fuel sector. It is important that the focus should be to reduce fossil fuel use in the developed countries.

The above argument explains the suspicion by developing countries that WENGOs are conducting a bogus campaign against the oil palm industry. The motivation must be to divert attention away from the real culprit who contributes to global warming : the fossil fuel sector which is allowed to continue to expand as it is vital for developed countries economic performance. Another motive is to protect their indigenous oilseed sectors, which are not sustainably produced, from competition coming from cheaper and more efficiently produced palm oil.