01
Jul 2008 - Tokyo, Japan: Millions of Japanese
citizens, a trillion in economic assets
and some of the country’s most iconic natural
features are all at serious risk from climate
change, says a new report by WWF. Hokkaido,
the province hosting next week’s G8 summit,
is even more exposed to certain threats
from warming temperatures and rising sea-levels
than other parts of Japan.
According to WWF’s report
Nippon Changes, Japan’s average annual temperature
has risen by 1°C over the past century,
increasing the frequency and intensity of
extreme weather events like heavy rain.
Warmer temperatures and changing weather
patterns have badly affected climate sensitive
sectors like agriculture and severely disrupted
species that rely on Japan’s precious ecosystems.
“The science clearly
tells us that climate impacts hitting Japan
in future will be far worse than the serious
disruptions the country is already suffering”,
said Gordon Shepherd, Director International
Policy at WWF International. “The time window
to protect people and nature from these
threats is closing rapidly, and next week’s
G8 summit should reflect this by agreeing
to a mid-term target for emission reductions
for industrialised countries of 25 to 40%
by 2020.”
The WWF report outlines
that Japan’s average annual temperatures
are expected to rise by another 2 to 3°C
by the end of this century, and by as much
as 4°C in Hokkaido. This brings warmer
winters and a decrease in the number of
frost days, which can facilitate pests and
diseases. Summers may become sultry, with
the number of hot days projected to triple
by 2100 – to 100 days per year.
Sea surface temperatures
are projected to warm by 1 to 6°C, increasing
the intensity of tropical cyclones by up
to 20%. Combined with the effects of rising
sea-levels, this can result in massive coastal
erosion and flooding. Since 1993 sea-levels
along Japan’s coast have already been rising
by 5.0 mm annually, and from 1970 to 2003
sea-levels in Hokkaido rose nearly twice
as much.
Nippon Changes highlights
that a one-meter sea-level rise could wipe
out 90% of Japan’s sandy beaches. The costs
to safeguard the country from changes of
this degree are estimated at US$115 billion,
with more than US$1 trillion in assets and
millions of people being at risk. About
46% of the population lives in coastal zones,
and 47% of all industrial output is produced
there.
“Even Japan’s cultural
identity is at risk from dangerous change,
due to worsening impacts on national icons
like the cherry blossom and the Japanese
crane, an emblem for longevity and happiness,”
said Naoyuki Yamagishi, Head of Climate
Change at WWF Japan. “Prime Minister Fukuda
must live up to his responsibility as a
G8 host and show credible leadership, by
pushing an agreement for global emissions
to peak and decline no later than within
10 to 15 years.”
On average, cherry trees
now bloom 4.2 days earlier than 50 years
ago. Another quintessential feature of Japan,
Hokkaido’s Shiretoko peninsula also feels
the burn of climate change. This is the
nesting site of half the world’s population
of endangered Steller’s sea eagles, and
also home to the threatened Blakiston’s
fish owls, Steller’s sea lions and Japan’s
only population of Brown Bears.
For more information:
Masako Konishi, Senior
Climate Policy Adviser, WWF Japan
Christian Teriete, Communications Manager,
WWF International
Editors Notes:
1. Along with this report, WWF Japan launches
the country’s first Climate Witness programme.
The Climate Witnesses are members of the
public sharing their observations of a changing
climate and how it affects their livelihoods
and businesses here and now. Each Climate
Witness story is checked by a Science Advisory
Panel, composed of leading climate scientists
supporting WWF voluntarily. To visit the
WWF Japan Climate Witness programme online
and to submit a story, please go to: www.wwf.or.jp/climate
2. Fact sheets introducing a first group
of Climate Witnesses from Japan are also
available on the WWF Japan website at: www.wwf.or.jp/climate
3. The WWF International Climate Witness
programme with accounts from affected people
from all over the world can be visited at:
www.panda.org/climatewitness
+ More
Poaching gangs blamed
for tiger density tumble in Nepal park
02 Jul 2008 - A Nepal
wildlife reserve that boasted the highest
density of tigers in the world is just half
a decade later struggling to hold a few
remaining tigers.
Conservationists were
highly gratified when the first systematic
sampling of the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve
in border areas of western Nepal in 2004/05
revealed a tiger density of 17 per 100 km2,
an estimated 27 tigers for the 305 km2 reserve.
But the joy was shortlived
as the 2006/07 sampling showed tiger density
declining almost two thirds to six per 100km2.
“We were perhaps too
cautious in not ringing an alarm bell when
the density declined in
2005/06,” said Anil Manandhar, Country Representative,
WWF Nepal. “In the absence of any reported
tiger poaching case [by the park authorities
during 2004-06], we felt that reduced sampling
could have been a reason for this observed
decline and wanted to confirm it with another
year of monitoring.”
However, a scientific
monitoring program using camera traps in
93 locations carried out between December
2007 and March 2008 was able to identify
only five tigers - two male and three female
- in the Shuklaphanta core area.
The monitoring program
is run by WWF in conjunction with the National
Trust for Nature Conservation and the Nepalese
government Department of National Parks
and Wildlife Conservation.
On WWF estimates, the
park tiger population now stands at just
seven, a density of just under three tigers
per 100 km2. On government estimates, the
total park tiger population stands between
six and 14 tigers.
According to WWF two
recent seizures of tiger bones inside the
reserve as well as skin and bones from adjoining
Dhangadi town and photographs of people
with guns taken through camera traps are
all indicative of organized poaching in
Shuklaphanta.
“Also there is no noticeable
outbreak of disease in the region,” said
Manandhar.
Other human incursions
into the park such as encroachment, illegal
hunting, illegal fodder and fuelwood collection,
illegal rampant timber collection and high
grazing pressure are considered to have
played a smaller role in the decline in
tiger numbers.
WWF has decided to scale
up its community-based anti-poaching operation
outside Shuklaphanta with 'Operation Tigris',
noting that a similar program outside Nepal’s
Chitwan National Park has so far been a
big success with not one rhino poached outside
Chitwan in the past year.
“We would like to repeat
the same exercise around Shuklaphanta and
will make sincere efforts to control poaching,”
said Diwakar Chapagain, Wildlife Trade Manager
of WWF Nepal.
“Although the tiger
population in Shuklaphanta is severely depleted
now, we strongly believe that it has not
reached a point of no return and that with
adequate protection and effective anti-poaching
measures the tiger population in Shuklaphanta
will bounce back.”
