Alot of reading, but all good and worthwhile. Clicked.
Hey, Danon. Ever hear of this critter?
t really does exist! Maybe! The famed chupacabra has apparently been found, and it's a Texan.
Or at least it was. The beast is now dead, but news of its capture near Blanco, Texas, inspired Bigfoot-sized searches. Lookups on "chupacabra" surged a whopping 571%, and related queries on "what does chupacabra mean" also roared. (For the record, its rough translation is "goat sucker.") The find also inspired renewed interest in the equally notorious Montauk Monster.
Jerry Ayer, owner of Blanco Taxidermy School, has possession of the mythical beast's body. According to CNN, the animal was discovered by one of Ayer's students. The student had "placed poison...to catch an unidentified animal that had gotten into a family member's barn." Little did the student know the animal in question was (maybe) the chupacabra.
In the video from CNN (which is pretty gross, so beware), Ayer shows off some of the unusual features of the animal, including abnormally long legs and teeth. It looks a bit like the world's ugliest (and meanest) dog.
Of course, this is hardly the first time someone has claimed to have captured the chupacabra. In years past, brave souls have spotted it in places ranging from Russia to Maine to the Philippines. Often the animal is spotted by folks who conveniently forget to snap a photo.
Not so this time. Ayer says he plans to preserve the animal and then donate it to a local museum so it can be enjoyed by others. As the taxidermist puts it, the beast is "a tremendous conversation piece." Sort of like the Mona Lisa or a really stellar collection of garden gnomes.
Tipping Points: What Wall Street and Nature Have in Common
Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com clara Moskowitz
livescience Staff Writer
livescience.com 2 hrs 42 mins ago
When a big change is coming - be it in ocean circulation patterns, wildlife populations, or even the global economy - it is often heralded by telltale signs, scientists have found.
In many man-made and natural systems, conditions reach a tipping point when a major transition occurs and the system shifts from one state to another. Now researchers say they can begin to predict these tipping points by searching for universal early warning signs.
"At first we were surprised that yes, actually critical transitions in the brain could have a fundamental similarity to critical transitions in financial markets or ecology," said lead researcher Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "It's a radical idea but when you think about it, it makes sense. Whatever system it is, if it has a tipping point, the universal laws of behavior for dynamical systems apply."
The researchers reviewed data from many different types of systems, including ecological systems such as the Earth's climate and ocean patterns, economic systems such as global stock market patterns, as well as medical systems in the human body such as asthma attacks, epileptic seizures and migraines.
In each of these examples, the scientists found that tipping points occurred and conditions changed dramatically over a relatively short period of time.
"Most systems change gradually most of the time, and tipping points are the exception," Scheffer told LiveScience. "But they are a very interesting exception, because they usually imply radical change."
Warning signs
One of the common warning signs of an impending tipping point is when a system takes longer to recover to equilibrium after it is disturbed. Most systems exist in temporarily stable states of equilibrium. If the system is perturbed by some force and pushed in a new direction, it usually moves back toward equilibrium quickly. But if the system is approaching a tipping point, it tends to take longer to recover its balance.
Another universal warning sign is when fluctuations in the system slow down. For example, in a climate approaching a tipping point, the weather tends to look more similar day to day leading up to the big change. In a brain before an epileptic seizure, neighboring patches of neurons look more like each other than they would in a regular brain. Prior to major economic change, stock markets in different areas start to act similarly to each other.
While fluctuations take longer in these systems, they often are greater in magnitude. That is, under normal circumstances fluctuations tend to be short and small. When a drastic transition approaches, conditions fluctuate between greater extremes, and the fluctuations take longer to pass.
"Close to a tipping point the system becomes more inert," Scheffer said. "If you displace it, there is less of a tendency to come to its own equilibrium value."
The scientists were excited to find connections between such vastly different systems, and hope to eventually apply their work toward practical early warning systems for, say, a seizure or a stock market crash.
"There is a lot of work still do to do when it comes to practical applications," Scheffer said. "That's far from easy. It's really an area of research that is in an exciting early development."
The research, which is detailed in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal Nature, was supported by the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology and Division of Ocean Sciences.
EVERYTHING you might want to know about the problems affecting bees.
September 2, 2009, 7:36 pm
Saving Bees: What We Know Now
By The Editors
Phil Hawkins/Bloomberg News Newly hatched honeybees in an almond orchard in Wasco, Calif.
Resources
* “New Clues in the Mass Death of Bees” (Time magazine, Aug. 24, 2009)
* A Beekeeper’s Journal
* Times Topics: Bees
* Bitten Blog: More on Bees
The first alarms about the sudden widespread disappearance of honeybees came in late 2006, and the phenomenon soon had a name: colony collapse disorder. In the two years that followed, about one-third of bee colonies vanished, while researchers toiled to figure out what was causing the collapse. A study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences surmises that there may not be a single pathogen involved but a collection of culprits. What have entomologists and beekeepers learned in the last few years of dealing with the crisis? We asked May R. Berenbaum, an author of the study, and other experts for an update.
* Kim Flottum, editor, Bee Culture
* Joe Traynor, California bee broker
* May R. Berenbaum, entomologist, University of Illinois
* Marla Spivak, entomologist, University of Minnesota
* Diana Cox-Foster, entomologist, Pennsylvania State University
Profound Changes
Kim Flottum is the editor of Bee Culture magazine and the author of “The Backyard Beekeeper” and “The Backyard Beekeeper’s Honey Handbook.”
Pesticides, bacterial diseases and varroa mites have been implicated in the search for the causes of colony collapse disorder. Plus, viruses in conjunction with environmental stresses are suspects, and University of Illinois scientists have discovered what occurs at the genetic level of CCD. I suspect it is only a matter of time before the pathogens are known.
Meanwhile, individual beekeeping operations have been damaged, some beyond repair because of this malady. Others have been able to recover. The overall picture is, however, not quite as bleak as the press and the blogosphere might lead you to imagine. Colony numbers in the U.S. show the resiliency of American beekeepers.
But beekeepers know that changes are necessary. The changes involve effective and efficient management of varroa mite populations. A beekeeper’s obvious first choice is to manage honeybee lines that are resistant to or tolerant of these mites. But there is a very limited quantity of these bees, and they are expensive. Or beekeepers can choose a line of bees that tolerates mites to a great degree, but differ in behavior from the bees they are familiar with. Russian bees are resistant to the mites, but their seasonal timetable is much different from that of the bees most U.S. beekeepers are used to.
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In particular, Russian bees require extra work in late fall and early winter to accommodate the mid-winter almond crop in California. Almonds bloom in February and March, much earlier than any other major pollination crop. More than half of the bees in the U.S. are used to pollinate almond orchards, and many, if not most, migratory beekeepers depend on the crop for pollination income. The migratory beekeeping industry goes as the almond crop goes, and the crop is suffering from water shortages, price fluctuations " and beekeeper availability due to CCD and other forces.
The only alternatives to the use of resistant honeybees are chemical miticides that effectively and efficiently control varroa mites while they are in the hive. Newer products using essential oils are safe, effective but labor-intensive, while traditional choices require less labor but are less effective.
Reducing the insidious use of pesticides on everything honeybees eat has been a priority.
But for the longer term commercial beekeepers have concluded that if they are going to succeed in the migratory pollination business, they need to change and attend to the discoveries made in the search for clues to colony collapse disorder.
High on beekeepers’ lists, besides controlling Nosema ceranae, is reducing the insidious pesticide barrage applied to everything honeybees eat, and insuring that bees’ nutritional needs are met by feeding them better food more often. These management changes have been rapidly accepted and have lead to profound improvements in honeybee health.
The benefits? The pesticide abuse debacle in this country may have finally come to a head, and discussions among beekeepers, the Environmental Protection Agency and agricultural pesticide companies have begun (but is the new E.P.A. better than the last, and are chemical companies on the level?). Plus, honeybee health has gained more attention and made more progress in the last two years than the last three decades. Better resistant bees are next in line.
But most important? Awareness of the value of the beekeeping industry in the production of the food we need is better understood now than perhaps ever before.
Bias Against a Non-Native Species
Joe Traynor is a bee broker for apiarists and almond growers. His company, Scientific Ag, is based in Bakersfield, Calif.
The current consensus is that bee problems are caused by multiple stressors. Bees, like us, carry viruses and harmful microbes all the time. When we (and they) get run down, these nasties can take over, making us sick. Colony collapse disorder peaked during 2007, which was also a year, due to drought conditions in many areas of the U.S., that good bee forage was in short supply; as a result, honeybees suffered nutritionally, making them more susceptible to viruses (carried and transmitted by varroa mites) and to a new (to the U.S.) fungus, nosema ceranae, believed to have been introduced here in 2007.
Possible culprits: developers, second-home buyers, corn producers " and conservation purists.
Bee forage was more plentiful during 2008 and as a result there were less incidences of CCD (we won’t know for a while how 2009 will turn out). Beekeepers that have kept their bees in top shape nutritionally have had lower than normal problems with colony collapse disorder.
There is no question that annual bee losses are far greater today than they were 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, before virus transmitting varroa mites were found in the U.S., 10 percent winter losses were normal; now 20 percent losses are normal and losses hit 36 percent in 2007 (around 30 percent in 2008). Beekeepers have to work much harder to keep their bees in good health than they did 20 years ago. This means paying close attention to nutrition, via supplemental feeding of both proteins and carbohydrates, and controlling both varroa mites and nosema (easier said than done as there are limited means of controlling these two pests).
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Natural bee forage, including some agricultural crops, is better for bees than artificial supplements. Bees, like us, require a varied diet to remain in top health. The ethanol boom has caused corn, a poor pollen source for bees, to replace clover and alfalfa, relatively good bee plants, in some parts of the U.S.
Increased urbanization, especially here in California, has resulted in the loss of excellent bee pasture. When baby boomers build a second home in the foothills of California (or in Montana) they don’t want any bees near their homes, so the first thing they do is evict beekeepers from long-held locations.
Nature Conservancy removes honeybees from its land because they originally came from Europe.
Counterintuitively, the Nature Conservancy has also contributed to bee problems. The group purchases large tracts of undeveloped land for the laudable purpose of preserving these tracts in their native state for future generations. Unfortunately it has a policy of evicting all non-native species from the property it acquires. This includes honeybees since they are an introduced species, brought over from Europe by early settlers.
The conservancy recently took over a large tract of land in San Diego County that provided sustenance for many commercial bee colonies. The bee colonies were evicted and are now competing for ever diminishing bee pasture in the San Diego area (there are probably 100,000 commercial bee colonies competing with each other in San Diego County alone).
Evicting commercial (European) bees from Nature Conservancy holdings is shortsighted as it creates a vacuum that allows Africanized honeybees, which are prevalent in Southern California and are becoming more prevalent in other parts of the U.S., to establish themselves on the group’s property. The recent finding of fossilized honeybees in the U.S. (thousands of years old but now extinct) may cause the conservancy to change its policy, but beekeepers aren’t holding their breath on this.
The costs of keeping bees in good condition to ward off colony collapse disorder have increased dramatically over the past two years. A main reason CCD has decreased this past year is that beekeepers are spending much more time and money keeping their bees healthy.
Increased pollination fees for agricultural crops requiring honeybees are paying for these increased bee maintenance costs.
A Viral Overload
May R. Berenbaum is a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
A few things have changed with respect to colony collapse disorder in the past year. First, whereas surveys conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America estimated CCD losses in America’s managed honeybee colonies during the winters of 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 at 36 percent and 32 percent, over the winter of 2008-2009 losses dipped to 29 percent, possibly indicating a decline in severity.
Patrick Pleul/European Pressphoto Agency
Secondly, an extensive survey conducted by researchers from two land grant colleges, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and two Belgian universities examined adult and larval bees and hive products from almost 100 colonies for parasites, pathogens, pesticides and nutritional factors. Although no single diagnostic difference was identified, one consistent finding was that colony collapse disorder bees were infected with multiple pathogens; over 50 percent of CCD colonies, e.g., were infected with three or more viruses, almost twice the percentage of healthy colonies.
Most recently, a whole-genome honeybee microarray analysis allowed investigators from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U.S.D.A. to examine differences in patterns of expression of all 10,000+ genes in the honeybee genome, the sequencing of which was completed in 2006. Multiple comparisons of hives varying geographically, temporally, and in CCD severity winnowed the list of genes whose expression was most closely associated with the disorder down to a handful representing fragments of ribosomes, the “protein factories” of the cells, thus implicating ribosome breakdown as a “root cause” of CCD.
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Genetic material from common bee pathogens also on this microarray revealed, as before, that CCD bees were infected with a greater number of viruses, specifically picornalike viruses, all of which cause infection by hijacking the ribosome, reprogramming the “factory” to make viral proteins instead of honeybee proteins. Thus, viral overload may lead to ribosome breakdown, which is manifested as CCD. Together these studies may explain why so many explanations of colony collapse disorder seem plausible; in the absence of functional ribosomes, bees would be hard-pressed to respond to any of the multiple stresses to which they are subjected in 21st century apiculture " pathogens, pesticides or nutritional deficiencies.
Detecting the ailment early might give beekeepers a chance to provide supportive care.
As for practical applications of these findings, the most immediately useful product of the microarray study is an objective genetic diagnostic indicator of colony collapse disorder " the ribosome fragments. Such a diagnostic indicator would be useful in determining whether other CCD-like disappearances in England, Spain and elsewhere are in fact colony collapse disorder or entirely different in origin.
Early diagnosis of the ailment might not be directly useful " there are no vaccines to combat bee viruses and no known ways to patch up broken ribosomes " but beekeepers who detect this breakdown early on may be able to provide supportive care to help their bees recover.
Living With a Crisis
Marla Spivak is a professor of entomology and social insects at the University of Minnesota.
All bees " honeybees and native bees " are still in decline, and it is a serious issue. It is true there is less news coverage of bee health issues, but bees are not faring better. Over 30 percent of our honeybee colonies die every year, from colony collapse disorder or other causes. Some native bumblebee species have become nearly impossible to find, and we don’t know how many other native bees are threatened.
Beekeepers are treading water, replacing as many colonies as economically feasible for their operations. Researchers are hard at work using cutting-edge methods to determine why honeybee colonies are collapsing and how we can mitigate the decline of all bees.
While bees may have faded from the news, they have not faded from the public eye. In fact, the opposite has occurred. People are more aware than ever about bees. The crisis has helped us understand the importance of pollinators to our diet and environment and many people want to know how they can help.
What can we do to help bees? Plant lots of flowers that provide nectar and pollen for bees, and reduce pesticide use. These two tangible and relatively easy actions, when implemented by many people, can save our bees and restore health and diversity to our agricultural and urban landscapes.
Needed: More Disease-Resistant Bees
Diana Cox-Foster is a professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University.
In the almost three years since the plight of honeybees caught the public’s attention, we have learned that bees are faced with many different obstacles, some naturally occurring (such as diseases) and others that are byproducts of human activity.
The honeybees in the U.S. have been in trouble since the introduction of parasitic mites (Varroa and tracheal mites) in the late 1980’s. Varroa has continued to be the major problem, in part because the mites have become resistant to the acaricides used for control.
Our study of hundreds of pollen samples showed on average six different pesticides. Do chemicals impair bees’ immune systems?
Colony collapse disorder has severely affected many beekeepers in the United States and caused some to go bankrupt. We have learned much about CCD, but we are still a long way from determining its exact causes and how to mitigate this disease. Of major worry is that these same causes may be affecting native insect pollinators. This translates into concerns not only for security of our food crop production but also for the overall health of the ecosystems that we depend upon for survival.
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Data indicate that colony collapse disorder here in the U.S. has a common set of symptoms that differ from colony losses associated with late-summer or over-winter death. CCD colonies have elevated levels of at least one of three closely related viruses: Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, Kashmir Bee Virus or Acute Bee Paralysis Virus. The microsporidian parasite Nosema ceranae by itself does not appear to be a major cause of hive mortality in the U.S.
Studies at Penn State indicate that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus can cause some of the symptoms of CCD. However, we think that stress is an added major component and that other microbes and parasites present in the bees play a role. Stresses such as sub-lethal pesticide exposure and lack of adequate nutritional sources (pollen and nectar) may be affecting the bees. In hundreds of samples of incoming pollen, a team at Penn State and the U.S.D.A. has found that over 99 percent have at least one pesticide contaminant, on average six different pesticides, and up to 35 different pesticides in a single sample. Over 100 different pesticides have been identified.
Bees need more flower or pollen sources nationwide.
What impact do these chemicals have on bee health via impairment of bee’s immune system to fight off diseases like viruses, through impact on bee behavior, or by decreasing colony build-up and reproduction? We have preliminary data to suggest that all of these aspects are part of the problem, but we do not know to what extent or exactly how, preventing mitigation of this stress.
New approaches are needed to mitigate the problems in pollinator health. It is clear that our recent recommendations to the beekeepers are having a positive effect: sterilize the equipment from collapsed colonies using gamma irradiation, use soft chemicals to control Varroa mites and Nosema, and feed artificial pollen when needed. Prior to CCD, these measures would not have significantly affected overall colony survival. However, these are temporary Band-Aids; these methods are costly and do not eliminate the underlying causes.
Beekeeping operations need sustainable solutions to stay in business and provide essential pollination services. Needed are new strains of bees with more resistance to diseases and parasites. The impact of pesticides needs to be lessened. Lastly, bees need more flower or pollen/nectar sources nationwide. In summary, we are a long way from “solving” the pollinator crisis.
@Stradee,
sue, I've not heard about the chupacabra before. After a small search I found the animal is native to S America and has been seen more often in Mexico. It is thought to be a cross between a Southern type wolf and a coyote. It is rather ugly.
Hi all. Good clicking today.
@sumac,
Hi aktbird57,
You’ve been helping since April, 2000!
* 5.9 acres of rainforest saved
Clicked, and for your reading pleasure, an editorial from today's NYT about what the oil and gas industry is up to now.
September 4, 2009
Editorial
Another Astroturf Campaign
It was probably only a matter of time, but the oil lobby has taken a page from the anti-health-care-reform manual in an effort to drum up opposition to climate change legislation in Congress. Behind the overall effort " billed, naturally, as a grass-roots citizen movement " lie the string-pullers at the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main trade organization and a wily, well-funded veteran of the legislative wars.
Greenpeace, the advocacy group, uncovered a letter last month from the A.P.I. president, Jack Gerard, to industry C.E.O.’s revealing that the campaign’s central objective is to “put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy,” specifically the Waxman-Markey bill recently passed by the House.
The Waxman-Markey bill seeks a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, partly by requiring emitters like power plants and oil refineries to invest in cleaner technologies or, if they cannot reduce their own emissions, to buy permits from companies that can. Either way, the bill will saddle polluters with new costs. The Senate will take up its own version of the bill this month.
So far, A.P.I. has organized nearly 20 rallies in oil-producing centers like Houston and smaller Rust Belt towns like Lima, Ohio, and Elkhart, Ind. The immediate audience typically consists of several hundred local residents, and the atmosphere is festive " marching bands and hot dogs. The ultimate audience is fence-sitting senators who may be persuaded to reshape the House bill to the industry’s liking or vote against it altogether.
Local residents are not, of course, invited to debate the consequences of global warming, or dwell upon those parts of the bill that could lead to a whole new industry " and the jobs that would go with it " based on alternative energy sources, or to a future in which people save money by buying more fuel-efficient cars. The narrative they get is one of unrelenting gloom "unaffordable gasoline, stratospheric home heating bills and shuttered industries.
One can always expect hyperbole from Washington lobbyists when billions are at stake, but two elements of the industry’s campaign are particularly annoying. One is the assertion that Waxman-Markey will inevitably mean $4-a-gallon gasoline. Two reputable studies of the bill " by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Information Administration " say that gasoline prices will increase by about 20 cents a gallon at most by 2020, an estimate that does not account for the effects of new investments in clean vehicle technology.
The second claim is that the bill treats the oil industry unfairly compared with, say, the electric utilities. But the bill does not prevent the oil companies from passing along whatever costs they incur to consumers. And let’s not forget that over the years few industries have profited as handsomely from government policies as the oil and gas industries.
What the oil companies are probably worried about is that people and industries will use less of their product as alternatives appear and consumers become more energy-efficient. But isn’t that the point of the exercise?
Where does Ecstasy come from? A tree in Cambodia.
International drug trade drives illicit safrole-oil factories deep in the Cardamom mountains.
By Sam Campbell " Special to GlobalPost
Published: August 30, 2009 08:58 ET
Updated: September 2, 2009 11:53 ET
-A +A
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia " The pulse of dance-club music plays like a jungle beat, as thumping bass notes flirt with flashing lights, liquor and ecstasy of the pharmaceutical kind.
Miles and miles away, a little-known multi-billion dollar battle is playing out in the remote wilderness of Cambodia, linking the club scene to the jungle in a more nefarious way.
Clandestine factories deep in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia are producing safrole oil " also known as sassafras oil " the main ingredient in the party drug Ecstasy.
The recreational drug produces a euphoria its users say is so good even yawning is unparalleled while under its influence. But this euphoria is not without its downside " and not just the toll it takes on the brain, which at least one animal study shows can still be detected seven years from the time of use.
There is a growing, and perhaps just as deadly, price being paid by the local environment. Trees containing the viscous, fragrant, safrole oil are felled during the manufacturing process. Their oil-rich roots are mechanically shredded and boiled in large cauldrons. The resulting mixture is then distilled over fires that require enormous quantities of firewood to fuel them.
More on drugs:
The globalization of "Special K"
Why Mexican crystal meth is America's problem
Need an Advil in Brazil? Not so fast.
Safrole oil manufacturing is a big business, and as a result, severe deforestation and erosion scar the mountainous areas around the factories. The ramshackle, jury-rigged distilleries are perilous at best, and explosions are not unknown. Nearby streams that provide water for processing are soon fouled by factory waste, their delicate ecosystems poisoned. Even the oil itself is carcinogenic.
Though small-scale production of safrole oil for traditional remedies has been going on for centuries in Cambodia, the industrial production of oil destined for the narcotics trade has been ebbing and flowing since the late 1990s. In recent years, authorities have taken action against the safrole industry with some recent high-profile raids highlighting the issue.
A June 12, 2009 raid, led jointly by conservation NGO Fauna and Flora International and the Cambodian authorities, netted 142 barrels containing 5.7 tons of sassafras oil. Seized from a secluded house in the isolated village of O’ Kambou in the western Cardamom mountains, the haul could have produced 44 million tablets of Ecstasy with a total street value of $1.2 billion.
Most safrole oil distilleries are found in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in the Cardamoms and is where the majority of oil-bearing trees remain, according to FFI.
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FFI and the Cambodian authorities have an ongoing cooperation. They began putting pressure on the industry in 2004, although a December 2008 investigation showed that production had again surged. Aerial flyovers around that time revealed 16 factories in operation. Subsequent raids have now reduced that number to four, said FFI Wildlife Sanctuary Technical Advisor Tim Wood. At the height of the industry in 2006, he added, there were at least 75 distilleries in the area.
In June 2008, 1,278 barrels of sassafras oil were destroyed in Pursat province by Australian police, environmental NGOs and Cambodian authorities. Tim Morris, Australian federal police assistant commissioner, said the haul would have produced an estimated 245 million Ecstasy tablets with a street value of $7.6 billion.
The western Cardamoms are part of southeast Asia’s largest mainland contiguous rainforest and serve as the last refuge for more than 80 of the world's most threatened species, including Asian elephant, Indochinese tiger and Siamese crocodile, according to FFI.
More on drugs:
The globalization of "Special K"
Why Mexican crystal meth is America's problem
Need an Advil in Brazil? Not so fast.
Safrole oil, which is also used in the production of cosmetics and in the traditional Khmer remedies, is produced from the aromatic oil of a tree known in Khmer as Mreah prew phnom, which experts think is Cinnamomum parthenoxylon. The species is generally considered rare, and in Vietnam, it is classified as critically endangered. It has no common name in English and no one knows how many of the trees are left in the world.
Four Mreah prew phnom trees are needed to produce a single, 40-gallon barrel of safrole oil. An additional six trees of lesser value are felled to use as firewood in the processing of a single Mreah prew phnom tree.
Secrecy and geography conspire to keep the illicit safrole-oil trade under wraps. Oil is lugged out by human mules, often over many miles of punishing jungle terrain, to roads where it is smuggled through to Thailand or Vietnam. One factory worker, who requested anonymity, called the back-breaking work “so hard we wanted to die.”
Poverty-stricken recruits are paid $25 per month plus cigarettes, the worker said, and often have no idea of the oil’s true value or purpose. Once out of Cambodia, high-tech laboratories purify the sassafras oil and produce tablets of Ecstasy.
FFI’s Tim Wood says the business is run by highly organized trans-national crime syndicates. The same shadowy syndicates are thought to be involved in human and wildlife trafficking, drug smuggling and the illegal weapons trade.
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Experts say Vietnamese criminals moved their operations to Cambodia over the past decade after ravaging Vietnam’s forests, essentially clearing them of Mreah prew phnom trees. Cambodian authorities have identified a well-connected ethnic Vietnamese kingpin at work in Cambodia, but so far he has eluded arrest, according to FFI.
Teams of local rangers have closed dozens of safrole oil factories. Chap Siet is one such ranger, who has worked in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary for the last 10 years. He says he thinks about future generations and feels compelled to protect Cambodia's natural resources.
"Currently these natural resources are threatened by people who have power. These powerful people collude with offenders to destroy natural resources through wildlife poaching, illegal logging, land grabbing, and Mreah prew phnom oil production within the protected areas," he said.
Chap Siet said he faces many difficulties patroling the forests.
"We often patrol in heavy rain and we suffer from many diseases such as malaria and typhoid. There is a shortage of patrol equipment and we need more rangers," he said.
In a post-conflict country showing the scars of war, taking on the safrole mafia is certainly not for the faint of heart.
“Sassafras processing plants are frequently guarded by armed men and even booby-trapped with antipersonnel mines,” said David Bradfield, manager of the Cardamom Mountains Wildlife Sanctuary Project, which is overseen by FFI.
In March, a wildlife sanctuary ranger was killed. At that time, Environment Minister Mok Mareth pledged the government's dedication to preserving natural resources, though the high demand for the illicit substance continues to drive the market.
More on drugs:
The globalization of "Special K"
Why Mexican crystal meth is America's problem
Need an Advil in Brazil? Not so fast.
According to the 2009 U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report, somewhere between 72 and 137 metric tons of Ecstasy were produced globally in 2007, the most recent year from which they have compiled data. It's hard to say how much of that was produced in Southeast Asia, let alone Cambodia, but the UNODC does say that the stabilization of production in developed countries, like the U.S., has led to a spike in production in developing countries, many of which can be found in Southeast Asia. Some of the world's largest clandestine factories were found and dismantled in that region, they reported.
"This development is of concern as it relates to the potential for future growth, given that many of these countries are emerging economies with growing middle-classes that may represent lucrative new markets for ‘ecstasy,’" a UNODC report said.
UNODC also estimates that between 11 and 23.5 million people worldwide used Ecstasy at least once in 2007. Of that number, between 2.3 and 6 million were in East and Southeast Asia.
@sumac,
Mexico, Afghanistan, Cambodia...a terrible toll on the enviornment and people
http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674
@Stradee,
Hi all - happy clicking this weekend to one and everyone. er., something like that.
@Stradee,
One wnders if they have to take down the entire tree, as they do, rather than get out the sap.
Clicked and happy Labor Day to all. A fine fall day here.
@sumac,
sue, they're not concerned with ecology, just distribution. Apparently business is good for the short term. nuts
http://rainforest.care2.com/i?p=583091674
@Stradee,
Labor Day? Labor? That really sounds familiar - but, I just can't place the word.
Sue, in those poverty stricken countries the bottom line is drawn around the base of the tree. Bad news.
@danon5,
I like the word 'retirement' better...
Have a marvelous weekend, wildclickers!
@Stradee,
clickety
tickety
have a great weekend all
we're off to the fair tomorrow - hooray!
