LONDON, 23 January, 2018 – Water scarcity is now a real threat in two developing countries at the forefront of efforts to reduce climate change, India and South Africa.

This is not the tragically familiar story of extreme weather, stunted crops and foreshortened lives. It is a different sort of threat: to urban life, to industrial development, and to attempts to end poverty.

More than 80% of India’s electricity comes from thermal power stations, burning coal, oil, gas and nuclear fuel. Now researchers from the US-based World Resources Institute, after analysing all of India’s 400+ thermal power plants, report that its power supply is increasingly in jeopardy from water shortages.

The researchers found that 90% of these thermal power plants are cooled by freshwater, and nearly 40% of them experience high water stress. The plants are increasingly vulnerable, while India remains committed to providing electricity to every household by 2019.

Between 2015 and 2050 the Indian power sector’s share of national water consumption is projected to grow from 1.4 to nine per cent, and by 2030, 70% of the country’s thermal power plants are likely to experience increased competition for water from agriculture, industry and municipalities.

Power sector choking

“Water shortages shut down power plants across India every year,” said O P Agarwal of WRI India. “When power plants rely on water sourced from scarce regions, they put electricity generation at risk and leave less water for cities, farms and families. Without urgent action, water will become a chokepoint for India’s power sector.”

Between 2013 and 2016 14 of India’s 20 largest thermal utility companies experienced one or more shutdowns because of water shortages. WRI calculates that shutdowns cost these companies over INR 91 billion ($1.4 billion) in potential revenue from the sale of power.

It says water shortages cancelled out more than 20% of the country’s growth in electricity generation in 2015 and 2016.

• A new study has found that hornbills, vultures and eagles are being hunted for bushmeat in Cameroon in much greater numbers than previously thought.
• Researchers estimate that people living around the proposed Ebo National Park in Cameroon’s Littoral region consumed an average of 29 hornbills and eight raptors per month.
• But they remain unsure how the current levels of hunting are affecting the bird populations, given that so little is known about the latter.

Hornbills, vultures and eagles are being hunted for bushmeat in Cameroon in much greater numbers than previously thought, a new study has found.

Previous research has shown that relatively few birds are sold in Cameroon’s markets compared to mammals and reptiles. However, market surveys can be biased toward commercially valuable wildlife, missing animals that are killed by hunters for consumption in their hunting camps, Robin C. Whytock, a doctoral researcher at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and his colleagues found in a study published in 2016. Whytock’s team surveyed discarded animal remains at hunting camps in the Ebo forest (proposed Ebo National Park) in Cameroon’s Littoral region, and found that people were hunting about three hornbills every month on average.

But that seems to have been an underestimate, Whytock concluded in a recent study published in Biological Conservation.

Through a survey of 240 men from 19 villages around the Ebo forest, Whytock and his colleagues estimated that people in the region were consuming an average of 29 hornbills and eight raptors per month.

The researchers worry that large birds like hornbills could be especially sensitive to hunting since these birds reproduce slowly and have slow population growth. But they’re not sure how the current levels of hunting affect Ebo forest’s birds.

“It is difficult to quantify the implications of these numbers without having population estimates for the affected species,” Whytock told Mongabay. “My guess is that hornbills and raptors especially are declining in Cameroon’s unprotected forests, but we need to do more work on this.”

However, identifying the number of birds that are killed is the first step to understanding how bushmeat hunting can affect birds like hornbills and eagles, Whytock added.

Preliminary reports indicated that the rhinos died of salt-water poisoning.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has successfully translocated and immobilized rhinos over the years. Between 2005 and 2017, KWS translocated 149 rhinos with eight deaths. Therefore these recent deaths are worrying and call for thorough investigation to secure these critically endangered animals.

AWF Chief Scientist and Vice President for Species Protection Dr. Philip Muruthi described the deaths as shocking, given Kenya’s track record in conservation of rhinos.

“It is sad this has happened. Rhino translocation is an important tool for conservation and it is important to establish the cause of the deaths to ensure this does not recur. Kenya has had a lot of experience with positive results,” Dr. Muruthi said.

SOURCE: www.waf.org