Plants and Animals

I was fascinated to read last Friday in the Courier-Mail that the Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms in North Queensland have started selling $50 a cup Kopi Luwak coffee.

The coffee is expensive because the coffee beans are retrieved from the poo of the luwak, or common palm civet, Paradoxurus hermaphroditus. These cat-like creatures are apparently found in the jungles of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

The luwak eat ripe coffee berries but the inner bean is not digested, and can be retrieved from the animal’s poo while the stomach enzymes add to the coffee’s flavor.

I gave up drinking coffee when I gave up smoking cigarettes about 18 years ago, so I will probably never know whether this poo brew is worth the effort and expense. But I thought it was a great potential example of conservation through sustainable use as promoted by Michael Archer at the AEF conference.

I was a bit keen to see more pictures of coffee cats in the wild and get a picture for this blog, so I emailed Richard Ness in the hope he might have some photographs from the many camera traps he has had set in Indonesian jungle. [Remember that magnificent picture of the Sumatran tiger.]

Anyway instead of a Kopi Luwak, he has sent me this magnificent picture of a Macan dahan or clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa.

While the coffee cats are apparently quite common, this species, like the Sumatran tiger, is threatened by hunting for body parts including for meat, fur, teeth as well as bones.

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Thanks Richard Ness for the great photograph of the clouded leopard. If you have a picture of an endangered animal that you would like to share with other readers of this blog, please send it to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .

Four elephants have arrived safely in Sydney after two years of court battles and months in quarantine. They are from Thailand and probably destined to spend the rest of their lives behind bars at Taronga Park Zoo. But judging from these seven photographs, so far they are enjoying it.

Sustainable use for conservation has been a focus of two recent articles at BBC News. Eugune Lapointe put the argument for commercial trade in ivory in a piece entitled ‘Hunting for Conservation Solutions’ and a second piece by Eli Leadbeater entitled ‘Hunting has Conservation Role’ had a similar message ending with comment that, “In the future, the fate of many animals may well depend on the extent to which the public around the world starts to accept the idea of utilising wildlife in a sustainable way.”

The argument makes sense for African elephants, where well managed herds in places like South Africa need to be periodically culled. But I have trouble extending the argument to include, for example, tigers.

Sumatran Tiger in the wild, photograph from Richard Ness.*

The Asian tiger appears to be in trouble with accutane skins and body parts in demand in China. Mihir Srivastava explains that most of this demand is being met from India in a recent piece at On Line Opinion entitled ‘Indian Tiger Falls Prey to Chinese Aggression’.

There are apparently only 4-500 tigers remaining in Sumatra, in Indonesia. According to Wild Tiger, a website dedicated to the survival of Sumatra’s tigers, forest clearing for new large-scale oil-palm plantations is a real threat to this subspecies of tiger. Is demand for biodiesel in Europe fueling the demand for palm oil?

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Thanks to David@Tokyo for alerting me to the two BBC articles.

* Note from Richard Ness: “The picture was taken by a camera trap. All you do is set a digital camera along the trail and it takes a picture of any animal or human that walks by. We had requested the tiger foundation to assist in base line studies on wild life in an area in Sumatra. This photo was taken by a camera trap set by Dr. Neil Franklin from the Tiger Foundation. We had a separate group for Orangutans. We did find is a very unique area where the Aceh bio diversity overlapped with the North/Central Sumatra bio diversity. Ended up working with US AID and conservation international to try and have it protected. This work is still on going. What I also learned is that tigers are very interesting. I am not sure the cutting of primary forest for logging or plantations is a real issue for them. They may do just as well in secondary growth. The main problem is humans hunting them for parts… same goes for orangutans.”

The Icelandic Fisheries Ministry has declared that Iceland will resume commercial whaling with a catch of 30 minke whales and 9 Fin whales. George McCallum explains the implications both nationally and internationally:

“Iceland will become only the second country to openly conduct commercial whaling under International Whaling Commission (IWC) objection and this may very well lead to further nations following suit.

Obviously, Iceland may very well wish to open up international trade in the whale products obtained, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to achieve this. Iceland currently exports small amounts of whale meat to the Faroe Islands ( The Faroe islands are a self-governing region of Denmark). The Danish Foreign Ministry wrote in 2003 that the “CITES Convention does not apply to the Faroes for the time being.”

Surfacing Minke whale. One of the two species Iceland will begin to commercially hunt. For wildlife photographs visit www.whalephoto.com.

Iceland’s whaling commissioner Stefan Asmundsson also stated that “There is free trade within that area and whale products are simply one item therein.”

The Fisheries ministry also noted ” Any international trade in Icelandic whale products will be conducted in accordance with Iceland’s obligations under international law.”

The decision is certain to raise the hackles of anti-whaling countries and anti-whaling NGO’s, indeed, the first reactions to the decision have already been publicised on anti whaling NGO websites.

One such comment from Greenpeace states:

“Iceland has no market for whale meat, but they do have a huge and far more valuable market for whale watching, ” said Greenpeace campaigner Frode Pleym.

“Instead of investing in a one-man campaign to rejuvenate an outdated, unnecessary industry, that can only damage the reputation of the country internationally, Iceland should be capitalising on the value of a growing industry of watching and studying whales.”

Claims that the hunt is sustainable cannot not be credible, since nine of the 39 whales that are to be targeted are endangered Fin whales.”

Surfacing fin whales. One of the two species Iceland will begin to commercially hunt. For wildlife photographs visit www.whalephoto.com.

Greenpeace omit to note that the population of fin whales in the central Atlantic is estimated at 25,800 fin whales and that by any stretch of the imagination, a catch of 9 fin whales is not going to effect the sustainability of the central Atlantic population.

When Iceland re-joined the IWC in 2001 with an objection to the moratorium, they stated “As a part of the reservation, Iceland committed itself not to authorise commercial whaling before 2006. Thereafter such whaling would not be authorised while progress was being made in negotiations regarding the IWC’s Revised Management Scheme (RMS).”

They also note, ” At the IWC’s Annual Meeting in 2005 Iceland warned that no progress was being made in the RMS discussions. No objection was raised at the Annual Meeting to Iceland’s statement. At this year’s IWC Annual Meeting, Iceland’s understanding was reconfirmed as the IWC generally agreed that talks on an RMS had reached an impasse. Therefore, the two limitations attached to Iceland’s reservation with respect to the so-called moratorium no longer apply.

Accordingly, Iceland’s reservation is now in effect and Iceland has the legal right to resume sustainable whaling. This puts Iceland in the same position as other IWC members that are not bound by the so-called moratorium, such as Norway.”

The covers will come off the harpoon guns on Icelandic whaling vessels (image from a Norwegian vessel). For photographs visit www.whalephoto.com.

The chickens are finally coming home to roost in regards to the RMS “game playing” within the political plenary arm of the International Whaling commission. Iceland’s decision to resume commercial whaling may very well force anti-whaling governments to finally come to the table to deal with any genuine compromise proposals as to the real world implementation of the RMP and RMS.“

There was also comment from Japan with the Director of International Negotiations for the Fisheries Agency of Japan, Mr Morishita, congratulating Iceland for taking a bold and courageous step in the advancement of sensible management for marine living resources.

“This should come as no surprise to the world. When Iceland joined the IWC in 2001, it said it would resume sustainable commercial whaling if there were no progress on an international management regime for sustainable whaling. There has been no progress at all in that time and this has led Iceland to take unilateral action,” he said.

Here’s a typical Norwegian coastal whaling boat leaving harbour. The boat is 25m long. A typical quota for a boat this size would be 15-20 minkie whales.

For photographs: www.whalephoto.com.