Seagrass back in Dutch Wadden Sea

This video is called Eelgrass (Zostera marina) underwater in Ireland.

Common eelgrass is a seagrass species. Till about 80 years ago, it was common in the Dutch Wadden Sea.

Then, it became extinct there, after a big dike separated the Ijsselmeer fresh water from the salt water Wadden Sea, and after a seagrass disease epidemic.

Now, the Dutch Wadden Sea Society reports that an attempt to bring the eelgrass back to the Dutch Wadden Sea has started successfully. Last year, volunteers collected 100,000 seagrass plants near the German island Sylt.

They brought them to the Dutch Wadden Sea. It turns out that the plants are doing well.

More common eelgrass will be brought in from Germany.

Common eelgrass is important for fish laying eggs, and for young fish to hide. It makes a good environment for seahorses and pipefishes.

It also makes good food for brent geese.

Per unit area, seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world’s temperate and tropical forests: here.

Tasmanian swift parrot endangered

This video from Australia is called The Swift Parrot – Lathamus Discolor.

From Emu, a journal of BirdLife Australia:

Nesting requirements of the endangered Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor)

…

30 May 2012

Abstract

Declines in avian biodiversity are being reported worldwide. A better understanding of the ecology of many species is fundamental to identifying and addressing threatening processes and developing effective mitigation measures.

The Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor) is listed as endangered and is an obligate migrant that breeds only in Tasmania, wintering in mainland Australia. The species nests in tree-hollows and forages primarily on flowers of the Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and Black Gum (Eucalyptus ovata) during the breeding season.

Surveys for Swift Parrot nests conducted over three consecutive breeding seasons identified 130 Swift Parrot nests in 117 trees. Sites were between 12 and 130 ha in area with up to 49 nests found at an individual site.

Swift Parrot nest-trees were characterised as being large eucalypts (mean diameter at breast height = 105 cm) with five or more potential hollows (mean = 8.6) and showing clear signs of senescence. Reuse of nests was uncommon over the 3 years and the infrequency of reuse was most likely related to poor flowering of Tasmanian Blue Gums around nesting sites in years following recorded nesting.

To protect the species, conservation actions need to account for the spatiotemporal variation in the availability of Swift Parrot breeding habitat and recognise there may be several years between the use of a particular site. Given the number of nests found at individual sites this will require the management or reservation of suitable forest stands with old-growth characteristics across the landscape, rather than focussing on individual trees or historical nesting sites.

Baby shelducks, cygnets and hare

Yesterday, again to the “Baillon’s crakes’ reserve”.

Near the southern entrance, a reed warbler sings.

A female tufted duck swims.

A reed bunting song.

In the southern lake: shoveler ducks. Egyptian geese. A Canada goose nesting. An oystercatcher. A northern lapwing drives away a magpie.

A little ringed plover.

A common tern. Two black-tailed godwits wading.

A spoonbill lands in the northern lake.

Redshank and greenfinch sounds.

Four swifts fly past.

The water lilies have started flowering.

A domestic duck escapee resting on the dike near the north-south bridge.

A mute swan swimming in the north-south canal, with six cygnets.

Redshanks on northern lake mudflats.

Two barnacle geese. A black swan swimming.

Near the railway, two adult shelducks. Like the last time when I was here, with seven ducklings. They swim past a grey heron on the bank. So, not one little one caught since last time (by a cat, a pike, or a grey heron).

A sedge warbler sings behind the shelduck family, in the reedbeds.

Great crested grebes and coots swim here with youngsters as well.

A hare in the same spot as last time, probably the same individual.

A group of five ring-necked parakeets flies overhead, calling.

Two goldfinches singing in a treetop.

Endangered Panamian sloths, new research

This video is called Pygmy three-toed sloth swimming HD.

From Wildlife Extra:

First population census of Critically Endangered pygmy three-toed sloth

In search of the pygmy sloth

May 2012. A group of tiny sloths living on an uninhabited island will finally counted, after a team from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) conducted the first ever population census of the pygmy three-toed sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus).

Only found on 1 small island

The team undertook a nine-day expedition to Escudo Island, 17km off the coast of Panama, which is the only place in the world where the sloths are found. There, they conducted the first detailed population and habitat survey of the area, and spent time monitoring the unique behaviours of the world’s slowest mammal.

16th most endangered mammal

At half the size of their mainland cousins, and weighing roughly the same as a newborn baby, pygmy sloths are the smallest and slowest sloths in the world. They are ranked at number 16 on the EDGE of Existence mammals list and remain critically endangered.

ZSL’s David Curnick says: “Very little is known about this species. Current population estimates are, at a best guess, less than 500, but this is only based on anecdotal evidence. We’ve collected data for the first time to get an accurate picture of how many pygmy sloths are left in the world.”

More endemic species

Escudo is an unpopulated island fringed by mangrove forests, and roughly the size of New York’s Central Park. As well as sloths, it is known to be home to several other endemic species, including the neotropical fruit bat (Artibeus incomitatus) and the maritime worm salamander (Oedipina maritime), but very little is known about its wildlife, and the island remains largely unexplored.

As well as using bromeliad leaves as an umbrella to protect themselves from extreme weather, pygmy sloths appear to use mangrove trees as a tool to regulate their body temperatures – on cooler days they climb to higher spots to catch the sun, and when they get too hot they head down again to find a shadier spot.

Maybe fewer than 100 left alive

The team’s current data suggests that there could be fewer than 100 pygmy sloths left, making them one of the most endangered mammals in the world. The exact reasons for this decline are not yet known, but they found several areas where their critical mangrove habitats have been cut down.

Dr. Craig Turner from ZSL added: “The mangrove forests are relatively hard to penetrate, and from a sloth’s perspective they provide protection from aerial predators. We noticed that pygmy sloth mothers carrying young would remain low in trees, which may be an evolutionary hangover for predator evasion. However, hunting, mangrove cutting and tourism are all listed as threats to these sloths and their behaviour may now be putting them at higher risk.”

Conservationists from ZSL are currently analysing their data, and aim to publish the findings in the next few months. The team hopes to appoint and train an in-country EDGE fellow later in the year, and they will continue their monitoring and work within the local communities to establish the main threats to the species and develop plans to protect them.

Pygmy Three-Toed Sloth

The pygmy three-toed sloth was only recognised as a distinct species in 2001. It can only be found on Isla Escudo de Veraguas, which has been separated from mainland Panama for 9,000 years. Famous for its slow movements the pygmy three-toed sloth is ideally suited to life in the mangroves and is surprisingly good at swimming. The major threat to the pygmy three-toed sloth is habitat destruction which is reducing the size of its already small habitat.

New Australian plant species discovered

This video says about itself:

The Kimberley region is being described as Australia’s last great botanical frontier, after some significant new discoveries.

From Australian Geographic:

Botanist brothers uncover new Kimberley species

By: Victoria Laurie

May-17-2012

Intrepid botanist brothers Matt and Russell Barrett fly into our most remote regions to find new plant species.

A HELICOPTER HOVERS over the edge of a steep sandstone cliff deep in the wilderness of Western Australia‘s Kimberley region. Brothers and botanists Matt and Russell Barrett peer down at a rocky plateau. Before they even land, an unfamiliar shrub is spotted, and when they are finished, hours later, the helicopter is packed with many plant specimens carefully pressed between sheets of cardboard.

On one trip alone, they collected 10 new species over just six days, including undescribed types of Acacia, Melaleuca, Hibbertia, Eucalyptus, Boronia and Solanum, or bush tomato. “There are not many places in the world where finding this many new species is possible,” Matt says.

All specimens are carefully studied, labelled, named and preserved at the WA Herbarium or propagated at Kings Park’s Biodiversity Conservation Centre, the Perth-based institutions where the brothers work.

These botanists have endured tropical storms and swollen rivers in their quest to find new species in this vast and remote region, almost twice the size of Victoria. Luckily, they are hardy and can endure 18-hour work days, even in the sauna-hot humidity of the Wet. Growing up on Beverley Springs station, near the rugged King Leopold Ranges, the boys found their first new plant species – a triggerplant – growing beside a creek.

“Remarkable” contribution to Kimberley plant knowledge

Today, with several university degrees between them, Matt, 36, and Russell, 33, have added more to the knowledge of flora in the region than any other botanists in recent history. “Their contribution is remarkable and they are showing that the Kimberley is the last great botanical frontier in Australia,” says Kingsley Dixon, science director of Kings Park and Botanic Garden.

Matt and Russell have carved out a reputation for skilled observation and dogged persistence – they have clambered down cliffs near Kununurra, in the east Kimberley, in pursuit of a new species of Triodia, a spinifex that grows on rock faces. They’ve found themselves wading across croc-infested creeks, plant-specimen bags held high above their heads.

“We often go out in a helicopter and land on a spot where you can be almost 100 per cent certain that no white person has set foot before,” Matt says. “You’re seeing the place from a European perspective for the first time.”

Discovery can be a haphazard affair; on one occasion, while the brothers picked their way over stony ground, a giant yellow hibiscus loomed up in the landscape. From a distance, Matt thought it must be a weed. It turned out to be an unknown species, one of four Kimberley hibiscuses thriving in that rocky terrain that, so far, have been found nowhere else.

They have even rediscovered species that were suspected to be extinct. “One of them, Auranticarpa – similar to Pittosporum – was collected by Allan Cunningham on the [Phillip Parker] King expedition in 1821, then not seen for 180 years until we refound it in 2001,” says Matt. But it took the Barretts another 10 years to find an Auranticarpa in flower, the first such flower ever collected.

Plant-lovers from way back

The Barrett family moved to the Kimberley in 1981. Their father farmed; their mother supervised the kids’ School of the Air lessons. On holiday trips to Perth, they would bring plastic bags full of mouldering plants for identification – until a botanist took them under his wing and taught them how to press and preserve specimens properly.

There’s no sibling rivalry, Russell says. “I’d say it’s friendly competition – we each have groups of plants that we focus on, and we balance each other out quite well.”

“We play devil’s advocate,” adds Matt. “If one of us thinks we’ve found a new species, the other will challenge it. Russell is much more observant about spotting new plants. He’s intuitive; I’m more analytical.”

Russell says he is surprised that even fellow botanists fail to appreciate the diversity of Kimberley flora. “I’ve spoken to biologists who think of the Kimberley as a desert. If you drive along the Gibb River Road in the middle of the Dry, perhaps you would think that. All you’d see is rocks and dry grasses and trees…But if you live there through the Wet, within a couple of weeks after breaking rains everything turns from orange and brown to green. Within a month you’ve got knee-high grass and water is pouring off the gorges.”

The region’s plants may harbour secrets that could shed light on Australia’s floral history. “One toothbrush grevillea was discovered 10 years ago in the Prince Regent River area that has its closest relative in south-eastern Australia,” Matt says. “As far as we can tell, it’s a species left over after these plants went extinct over the rest of Australia. And it’s hanging on now in the Kimberley. To me that’s fascinating.”

Birds, insects in the botanical garden

This video from Britain says about itself:

Make your own Bug Hotel with the Horniman Museum

In the summer of 2009, the Horniman Museum and Gardens started work on a new Wildlife Garden which is now flourishing. It has been created as an outdoor classroom and an inspirational space containing lots of simple and fun ideas for attracting wildlife into green spaces. The minibeast hotel has proved the most popular feature and we have had lots of enquiries from people wanting to know how it was built.

We hope this video helps! The minibeast hotel is a one metre square structure made from old pallets and compost which we then packed with both living and non-living material to encourage bugs to visit for nectar, make their nests and spin their webs.

For more information about visiting the Wildlife Garden or taking part in any of our activities and events, visit our website http://www.horniman.ac.uk

On our way to the botanical garden today: in the canal, two young coots, fed by their parents. Close to where a coot nest was last year, in an old car tire.

Further in the canal, closer to the botanical garden. A beam floats in the water. On top of it, a big red-eared slider turtle. On the same beam, a smaller, younger turtle. Was it born here? Or is the climate too unlike the southern USA for that here?

Also on the beam, an adult coot drying its feathers. A young coot climbs on the beam as well. If the young coot approaches, sometimes the young turtle withdraws its head inside its shield. Soon, its head gets out again.

In the botanical garden since last year, a lot has changed. Now that the surroundings of the astronomical observatory, which had separated in the nineteenth century, are again part of the garden, several small biotopes for threatened Red List plants are around the observatory.

One of them is for plants, adapted to zinc in the earth. Zinc is poison for many plants, but not for plants adapted to it. One of them is the zinc violet; which flowers here.

There are also many new nest boxes in the garden. A big one for tawny owls. Others for great spotted woodpeckers (which I saw today). And for great tits, blue tits, nuthatches, short-toed treecreepers, spotted flycatchers, robins, wrens.

There are also boxes for bats, and one for hedgehogs.

Finally, there are many small boxes for solitary bees. A bigger one, called “insect hotel”. And a box for butterflies.

In the garden pond today: carp, which are supposed to be there. And roach; not supposed to be there, but which keep coming back, because roach eggs get attached to ducks’ feet etc.

World Migratory Bird Day in Kenya

This video is called Birds feeding at the Mount Kenya Safari Club.

From BirdLife:

BirdLife Africa Partnership Secretariat joins Mount Kenya Site Support Group to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day (WBMD) marked on 12th to 13th of May, 2012.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Each year around the world, people come together to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day to raise awareness on the protection of migratory birds. This year’s 2012 theme for World Migratory Bird Day is “Migratory birds and people- together through time”. Migratory birds and people are inseparably connected in many different ways but human activities like excessive land use, unsustainable hunting, poor agricultural practices, industrial pollution and many other activities now gravely threaten migratory birds around the world. WMBD strives towards preserving the cultural ties people have with migratory birds and the vital economic and environmental benefits they sustain.

WMBD is an important event in the BirdLife Africa Partnership Secretariat calendar of events and this year, staff led by Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Julius Arinaitwe, took time off their busy schedule to mark WMBD in Mount Kenya Forest, one of Kenya’s top water towers and an Important Bird Area (IBA). This event was hosted by the Mt Kenya community SSG. The SSG was represented by 3 groups; the Mt. Kenya biodiversity conservation group, Baguretti ecotourism club and Baguretti conservation youth club each with a membership of at least 60 people.

The events kicked off with Bird watching through the forest with team leaders leading four groups. Several bird species were sited among them the Cinnamon chested bee eater, Grey headed Bush-shrike, Grey Apalis, African Harrier Hawk, Speckled Mousebird, Variable sunbird, Purple Grenadier, Red eyed dove and many more. At least 30 species were sighted. Participants also took part in planting trees with various species being planted in the forest. At least 100 seedlings were planted. All this activities were aimed at the protection of the forest which is an important IBA.

Dinosaur-era insect pollination discovery

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor:

Dino-Era Insects Frozen in Time During Oldest Pollination

As dinosaurs loomed overhead, tiny female insects had just dusted themselves with pollen grains when they perished.

Tue May 15, 2012 10:11 AM ET

THE GIST

Amber preserved the earliest evidence of insect pollination.

The insects, called thrips, lived during the dinosaur age and had dusted themselves with pollen.

With massive dinosaurs towering above, tiny female insects called thrips had just dusted themselves with hundreds of pollen grains from a gingko tree more than 100 million years ago when they perished, only to be preserved in tree resin called amber.

The discovery, detailed this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the oldest known record of insect pollination.

(Pollination occurs when either the wind or an animal, mostly insects, deliver pollen from a plant’s male reproductive organ to the female parts either on the same plant or another one.)

During the lower Cretaceous Period when the newly discovered thrips lived, flowering plants would have just started to diversify, eventually replacing conifers as the dominant species, the researchers said.

“This is the oldest direct evidence for pollination, and the only one from the age of the dinosaurs,” study researcher Carmen Soriano said in a statement. “The co-evolution of flowering plants and insects, thanks to pollination, is a great evolutionary success story.”

Soriano and an international team of scientists studying the two pieces of amber, which were discovered in what is now northern Spain, say the specimens date back between 110 million and 105 million years ago. [Photos of the Ancient Pollinators]

They found six female thrips, also called thysanopterans, enclosed in the amber, with hundreds of pollen grains attached to their tiny bodies — the insects are just 2 millimeters long. The thrips, the researchers found, belong to a new genus now named Gymnopollisthrips, with two new species, G. minor and G. major.

After the amber pieces’ initial discovery, they were then kept in a collection of the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Álava in Spain.

To get a closer look at the pollination event frozen in time, the team used synchrotron X-ray tomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), focusing on the most representative of the amber-encapsulated thrips. In synchrotron X-ray tomography, charged particles are sent speeding through magnetic fields; these particles release high-energy light that can then pierce opaque materials to reveal three-dimensional, high-resolution images.

The images revealed various features of the pollen grains, together suggesting the grains came from a kind of cycad, or gingko, tree, the researchers said. Gingkos have separate male and female trees, with males producing small pollen cones and females bearing ovules at the ends of stalks that develop into seeds after pollination.

The researchers wondered what these pollen transporters would’ve gotten in return for their services so long ago. The benefit must have been the opportunity to pick up pollen food for the thrips’ larvae, said the researchers, adding that this benefit would have nudged the emergence of the ringed hairs specialized for pollen transport.

“Thrips might indeed turn out to be one of the first pollinator groups in geological history, long before evolution turned some of them into flower pollinators,” Soriano said.

See also here. And here.

Murdoch underling charged with bribing police

This video from Britain is called Rebekah Brooks and others charged with perverting course of justice (15 May 2012).

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Rebekah Brooks charged with perverting the course of justice

Former News International chief executive, her husband and four others charged in phone-hacking inquiry

Sandra Laville, crime correspondent

Tuesday 15 May 2012 16.02 BST

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been charged over allegations that she tried to conceal evidence from detectives investigating phone hacking and alleged bribes to public officials.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, would be charged with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July last year at the height of the police investigation.

And Scotland Yard later confirmed she had been charged along with her husband, Charlie Brooks, and four others.

Brooks is accused of conspiring with others, including her husband, a racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, and her personal assistant, to conceal material from detectives.

Brooks and her husband were informed of the charging decision – the first since the start of the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation last January – when they answered their bail at a police station in London on Tuesday morning.

They are among six individuals from News International, along with the company’s head of security, Mark Hanna, to be charged over allegations that they removed material, documents and computers to hide them from officers investigating phone hacking. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

In a statement, Brooks and her husband – who are both close to David Cameron – condemned the decision made by senior lawyers and overseen by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions. …

Brooks is accused in one charge of conspiring with her PA, Cheryl Carter, to “remove seven boxes of material from the archives of News International”.

In a separate charge she is accused of conspiring with her husband, Hanna, her chauffeur and a security consultant to conceal “documents and computers” from the investigating detectives. All the offences are alleged to have taken place in July last year.

Alison Levitt QC, Starmer’s principal legal adviser, said the decision to charge six of the seven individuals arrested over the allegations came after prosecutors applied the two-stage test required of them when making charging decisions.

“I have concluded that in relation to all suspects except the seventh there is sufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction,” she said.

“I then considered the second stage of the test and I have concluded that a prosecution is required in the public interest in relation to each of the other six.”

Levitt said the televised statement had been made in “the interests of transparency and accountability to explain the decisions reached in respect of allegations that Rebekah Brooks conspired with her husband, Charles Brooks, and others to pervert the course of justice”.

She said detectives handed prosecutors a file of evidence on 27 March this year in relation to seven suspects: Brooks, her husband, Hanna, Carter, Paul Edwards who was Brooks’s chauffeur employed by News International, and Daryl Jorsling, who provided security for Brooks, supplied by News International.

See also here.

Tories’ panic mounts as Cameron’s chum Rebekah Brooks charged: here.

Of course, no objection at all to charging Ms Brooks, a rich and powerful criminal suspect and friend of David Cameron. However, compared to her boss Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks is just an organ grinder’s monkey. When will the police (sections of the police not yet bribed by the Murdoch empire, one should hope) do something about the organ grinder Murdoch himself?

Leveson inquiry: Damning evidence of political corruption of Labour and Conservative parties: here.

There have been over 800 complaints over police corruption in the last three years, a government-commissioned report has revealed: here.

Pressure mounted on Tory Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Thursday after a lobbyist and a former special adviser laid out the gory details of his office’s dealings with the Murdoch empire over its bid for broadcaster BSkyB: here.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt told his special adviser Adam Smith to quit after emails revealing the close relationship between his department and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation were released, the Leveson inquiry heard today: here.

USA: Charles Koch + Roger Ailes = Ohio University? Robert Greenwald, Brave New Foundation: “Why would the esteemed Ohio University host a talk by the likes of Roger Ailes? Maybe we should ask one of the talk’s patrons, Charles Koch. Ailes, of Fox News fame, is giving his talk today. The guy who invited him says the point was to get ‘perhaps the most influential newsman in America’ to spark a discussion about ‘free speech and the media,’ particularly given OU’s ‘first-rate school of journalism.’ But Roger Ailes isn’t a newsman and doesn’t do journalism. He does political advocacy that’s (very) thinly disguised as journalism. As Eric Boehlert of Media Matters says, ‘places of higher learning shouldn’t help perpetuate the Fox myth while turning a blind eye to the lasting damage Ailes’s enterprise is doing to journalism and to our national discourse’”: here.

Ex-Tony Blair minister helps illegal logging

This video from Britain is called Peter Mandelson confronted over MPs’ expense claims.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Lord Mandelson confirms he is advising company accused of illegal logging

Peer’s consultancy works for paper and pulp multinational alleged to have chopped down protected trees

Rob Evans and Kate Hodal in Jakarta

Thursday 10 May 2012 20.36 BST

Lord Mandelson has been recruited to advise a multinational company accused of illegally chopping down endangered rainforest.

The Labour peer and his staff in the political consultancy that he set up after leaving government have been meeting officials on behalf of Asia Pulp and Paper.

For more than a decade, APP, one of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, has been accused by environmental groups such as Greenpeace of destroying thousands of hectares of Indonesian rainforest and endangering some of the world’s rarest animals. A growing number of firms have boycotted APP.

The disclosure comes as Mandelson and other peers are expected to face pressure from the House of Lords authorities to declare their clients.

Global Counsel, the consultancy Mandelson chairs, does not name its clients as it “respects their privacy”. But after inquiries by the Guardian, he has confirmed that Global Counsel has a contract with APP, the first time he has acknowledged a client of his firm. The company says it is helping APP meet new EU rules requiring timber imported from Indonesia to be sustainably sourced.

The peer acquired a large roster of contacts from his time as the European trade commissioner between 2004 and 2008, and as a key member of the administrations of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

There has been long-running concern about politicians who exploit their contacts and knowledge gained while in public office after they leave power. …

The peer has travelled twice to Jakarta in recent months and held meetings with the EU ambassador there; his staff have met members of the Indonesian government.

When Mandelson lost his post as business secretary after the 2010 general election, he set up the “strategic advice consultancy” with financial backing from WPP, the marketing services group headed by Sir Martin Sorrell. Under Whitehall rules, he was barred from lobbying ministers and officials in the British government for two years after he left office. It appears that he has been concentrating on getting work from foreign companies.

Mandelson has been accused of using a loophole in the Lords’ register of financial interests to sidestep a new requirement to disclose certain clients of Global Counsel. He is understood to reject the accusation on the grounds that he acted with advice from the Lords authorities. A Lords committee is reportedly recommending that peers who have set up consultancies declare their clients or leave the parliament.

APP is a controversial Chinese-Indonesian company owned by the Widjajas, a rich dynasty. In recent months, APP has come under growing pressure after it was accused of illegal logging in Indonesia and damaging the habitats of rare animals such as the Sumatran tiger. A year-long Greenpeace investigation, published in March, alleged that endangered trees, known as ramin, have been chopped down and sent to factories to be pulped and turned into paper. The trees grow in peat swamps in Indonesia where the dwindling number of surviving Sumatran tigers hunt. Greenpeace alleged that it found ramin logs in a paper mill belonging to APP on nine occasions over a year. Chopping down ramin trees, a protected species under an international treaty, has been illegal under Indonesian law since 2001. Wood from the rainforests is being turned into everyday products around the world such as photocopying paper, tissues and paper packaging, according to Greenpeace. …

Last month, three large companies said that they were going to stop buying paper products from APP, either for ever or until they were satisfied that the products were being produced sustainably.

At least 67 companies worldwide, such as Tesco, Kraft Foods and the office suppliers Staples, have boycotted APP since 2004, according to a Greenpeace list.

APP has consistently said it has always acted in an environmentally responsible manner, that it has not been destroying large areas of Indonesian rainforest and that it was a prime mover behind establishing a sanctuary for the Sumatran tiger.

A Greenpeace spokesperson : “Asia Pulp and Paper has been responsible for the destruction of vast swaths of Indonesia’s rainforests, including areas of habitat for the critically endangered Sumatran tiger. Mandelson joins a growing list of spin doctors and industry stooges who have tried to rehabilitate APP’s image.” …

The peer, who is also an adviser to investment bankers Lazard, has been recruiting to Global Counsel individuals whom he reportedly “rated in government and who have the skills and connections to help him in his business”. His staff include the ex-civil servants Stephen Adams and Duncan Buchanan.

Adams worked as a speechwriter for Mandelson at the European commission and the business department, while Buchanan was the head of the South Asia unit of UK Trade and Investment, the government agency that promotes exports.