A new species found in Papua New Guinea: Long-nosed tree frog is one of the new species discovered in Foja mountains rainforest on the Indonesian island of New Guinea. Photograph: Tim Laman/NG

Wind turbine built at Coega

ELECTRAWINDS Belgium has started construction of its first wind turbine in the Coega Industrial Development Zone in Port Elizabeth.

The wind turbine will be completed in time to provide energy for the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium during the World Cup.

Electrawinds has invested R1.2billion in the Coega Wind Farm Project to build 25 turbines. Each turbine has a capacity of 1.8MW which translates into an annual yield 5700000kWh, enough energy to power about 1700 households. The electricity generated by the wind farm will be fed into the national grid and distributed by Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan municipality to households within the metro.

When completed, the wind farm will be able to supply Nelson Mandela Bay with an average of 45MW of green energy.

According to Luc Desender, managing director of Electrawinds, the construction marks the first commercial wind project in South Africa and for Electrawinds its first operational project outside Europe.

The first turbine units arrived from Denmark on Sunday at the Port of Ngqura. A R70million special crane will be used to erect the turbines.

Desender says overall, 133 indirect construction jobs, 55 construction jobs and 12 permanent jobs will be created during the building of the wind farm, which will be completed in 2011. — I-Net Bridge

Target of 20% wind power is called for

By INGI SALGADO
The SA Wind Energy Association (Sawea) yesterday called on the government to set a 2025 target of generating 25 percent of electricity from renewables, 80 percent of which should be reserved for wind.

The target would translate into 30 000 megawatts of installed wind capacity. South Africa's total installed capacity is around 40 900MW at present.

The proposal follows an in-depth study "to give decision makers the facts about wind energy", Sawea deputy chairman Mark Tanton said. It forms part of the industry body's submission to the government regarding the second integrated resource plan (IRP2), which will provide the country's energy blueprint over the next two decades.

Sawea said the extra cost to consumers of achieving its proposed renewable energy target would amount to 0.7c per kilowatt of electricity consumed, equivalent to less than 1 percent of the wholesale electricity price.

"A year ago to throw out a statement that wind would be a cheaper option would have been difficult. But not anymore," Tanton said.

The energy regulator's renewable energy feed-in tariff (Refit) for wind has been set at R1.25 a kilowatt-hour for a period of 20 years. By comparison, the cost of generating electricity at the proposed Kusile coal-fired power station is estimated at R1.20 a kilowatt-hour, without factoring in coal price hikes. Eskom is believed to pay at least R2.80 a kilowatt-hour when running its diesel-fuelled gas turbines. More

Lions hit by a 4x4

Wildlife and health officials are investigating after an ambulance ploughed into a pride of lions in the Imfolozi game reserve yesterday.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesman Jeff Gaisford said rangers had received a report from a motorist that an ambulance had crashed into the lions at 7am on the road through the centre of the reserve.

At least one of the lions went under the wheels of the 4x4 health department ambulance, which carried on driving.

Lion, cheetah and wild dogs have been killed on the road over the past four years since it was upgraded to tarmac.

Rangers found no carcasses or obvious signs of blood but were still investigating. The road has an 80km/h speed limit in the day and a 60km/h limit at night and it is believed that 500 speeding tickets have been issued so far this year.

When wildlife staff visited the provincial ambulance depot at Hlabisa, the supervisor said he was not aware of the incident or whether any patients or ambulance personnel had been injured. - Staff Reporter

Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea

Robert Booth
A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea

A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

The discoveries are being seen as fresh evidence of the richness of the world's rainforests and the explorers hope their finds will add weight to calls for international action to prevent the demise of similar ecosystems. They said Papua New Guinea's rainforest is currently being destroyed at the rate of 3.5% a year.

"It was mind-blowing to be there and it is clearly time we pulled our finger out and decided these habitats are worth us saving," said Dr George McGavin who headed the expedition.

The team of biologists included experts from Oxford University, the London Zoo and the Smithsonian Institution and are believed to be the first scientists to enter the mountainous Bosavi crater. They were joined by members of the BBC Natural History Unit which filmed the expedition for a three-part documentary which starts tomorrow night.

They found the three-kilometre wide crater populated by spectacular birds of paradise and in the absence of big cats and monkeys, which are found in the remote jungles of the Amazon and Sumatra, the main predators are giant monitor lizards while kangaroos have evolved to live in trees. New species include a camouflaged gecko, a fanged frog and a fish called the Henamo grunter, named because it makes grunting noises from its swim bladder.

"These discoveries are really significant," said Steve Backshall, a climber and naturalist who became so friendly with the never-before seen Bosavi silky cuscus, a marsupial that lives up trees and feeds on fruits and leaves, that it sat on his shoulder.

"The world is getting an awful lot smaller and it is getting very hard to find places that are so far off the beaten track." More

Gorillas suffer as eco-tourists get too close, warn researchers

Robin McKie
Proximity to humans can make great apes dangerously stressed.

Gorillas are being dangerously stressed by tourists whose attentions are disrupting the animals' feeding routines and making them aggressive. The discovery – made by researchers who have just completed a year-long study of the great apes at Bai Hokou in the Central African Republic – has important implications for the tourism industry.

Eco-tourism has become extremely popular, providing travellers with opportunities to get close to rare species, including tigers, polar bears and gorillas. Money raised in this way has helped to preserve endangered animals and bring employment to developing countries.

Gorilla tourism in particular has boomed, providing jobs and business opportunities in several African countries. In Uganda, gorilla tourism brings in an estimated £345,000 a month from the sale of permit fees alone.

But now scientists warn that greater care will be needed. Not only do tourists disturb the animals, but so do research teams studying the animals' behaviour and their interaction with tourists. It is recommended that the minimum distance between humans and gorillas be increased from seven to 18 metres. More

Can animals really be gay?

By Zoe Brennan

As the two birds gently entwine their heads, their soft, downy necks form a heart shape. They are, quite literally, a pair of love birds - Laysan albatrosses, reunited after months apart.

These seabirds, with a seven-foot wingspan and curved yellow beaks, soar over the oceans as far north as Alaska every November, after six months alone, before meeting at Kaena Point.

This rocky outcrop overlooking the Pacific in Oahu, Hawaii, is their ancestral breeding ground. It is here they return to mate and put on the world's greatest display of monogamy.

Albatrosses can live until they are 70 years old and it's said they make a lifelong commitment to one bird. They incubate their egg together for 65 days, taking turns to find food.

Indeed, former American first lady Laura Bush once hailed the bird as a mascot for pro-family Republicans. But a new study has emerged - and it is sure to shock Mrs Bush.

For all is not how it seems on Kaena Point. A biologist studying the 120-strong albatross colony at the University of Hawaii has ruffled quite a few feathers with her extraordinary discovery. She has found that many of the albatrosses appear to be, well ...gay.

Lindsay Young, who has worked on Oahu since 2003, has discovered that a third of the pairs at Kaena Point consist of two female birds.

The albatrosses have previously pulled the wool over conservationists' eyes with their cosy cuddling - as the two sexes look identical.

According to Young, who used DNA analysis to genetically test the birds' gender, some of the female pairs have been together for up to 19 years - as far back as biologists' data extends.

In that time, these same-sex partnerships raised dozens of chicks. It seems the females choose a male to father their chicks, but then return to their nests to incubate them with their 'wives'.

"This colony is literally the largest proportion of . . . I don't know what the correct term is - "homosexual animals?" - in the world," says Young.

Her revelations turn our knowledge of the animal kingdom upside down and begs the question: 'can animals be gay?'

In fact, same-sex sexual activity has been recorded in more than 450 species from flamingos to bison, beetles to warthogs, according to Jon Mooallem, who has written in The New York Times on the subject. More

2010 is the warmest year ever

Climate change advocates will be buoyed by data which has emerged from the US on Tuesday.

So far, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded.

The temperature data comes from two separate sources - the National Climatic Data Centre and Nasa, according to a report on USA Today.

The climate centre (NCDC) reports that the Earth's combined land and ocean average surface temperature from January-April was 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Centigrade) - which is 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average.

El Nino - a periodic natural warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean - is partly to blame for the unusual warmth, the report says.

Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also reports that 2010, so far, is the warmest out of 130 years. Both NCDC and Nasa use data that goes back to 1880. - New Zealand Herald