New cameras in sanctuaries to assist conservation efforts
THE Ministry of Environment plans to install 10 more motion-censor cameras in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary in Pursat province this year to better observe wild animals and bolster enforcement against forestry crimes.
Spokesman Neth Pheaktra said the ministry had been cooperating with Wild Earth Allies (Cambodia) since early last year to develop efforts to search for wildlife, including with the prior installation of nine cameras. He added that the new installations would begin soon, and there would eventually be a total of 20 to 25.
“These camera-traps are not permanent installations. We move them every month to new places. Moreover, placements are made with consideration of the season so that we can identify the presence of wild animals and see where they shelter during the dry season and during the rainy season,” he said.
Pheaktra said the initial installation of the cameras had revealed many species of wildlife in the sanctuary, and it’s expected that there are many others which have not yet been observed.
“We checked the cameratraps
in the past, and there have been photographs of wild elephants, gaurs, roes, Brahmin monkeys, Macaca leonine, wild dogs, bears, badgers, peacocks, herons and others,” he said.
Pheaktra explained that the purpose of the cameras is to learn which species are present and understand their migrations as well as to monitor human activities in order to safeguard the area.
“We want to know how many people enter the area and
what activities they engage in so that we can provide reports to patrolmen to facilitate their work. With information regarding the presence and activities of people and animals in the area, we can conduct conservation work,” he said.
Pheaktra elaborated that data from the search will also be used for demarcating regions of the sanctuary and determining management strategies for them, particularly a core area and a conservation area where public
entry will be prohibited.
“Areas found to contain many wild animals will be classified as part of the core and conservation areas. People will not be allowed to enter these areas so that they may be sanctuaries for the animals.
“After identifying the presence of animals, we will spread the word to citizens and show them the evidence so that they will understand why these areas have been demarcated as such and why entry is not allowed,” he said.
AREV Cambodia Brands Inc has begun the first phase of a permaculture operation near Phnom Penh, according to a February 22 press release from its parent company, Toronto-listed AREV Nanotec Brands Inc (AREV).
AREV said the 20ha operation “will support the development of the raw materials for product innovations in development for introduction to market” in the third quarter of this year.
“Our first product category is a Readyto-Use Therapeutic Food or ‘RUTF’. Several ingredients will be produced using AREV’s proprietary extraction methodologies, including selected fungi that will be used in ‘SUS-TAINN’ [Superior Utility Supplementation Therapeutic Agent for Indicated Nutritional Needs], our branded RUTF formulation.
“Mycelium are a known source of sustainable protein, which has been neglected in the development of other RUTF formulas currently distributed in significant volume in resource poor settings by numerous public health commodity procurement agencies.
“Examples include the World Food Programme and USAID utilising RUTFs to address severe and chronic malnutrition, a condition that exacerbates pandemic diseases and associated co-morbidities.
“[RUTFs] are designed for specific, nutritional, therapeutic purposes, are composed of a mixture of protein, carbohydrate, lipid, and vitamins and minerals. The primary examples of therapeutic food use are emergency feeding of malnourished children and supplementing the diets of persons with special nutrition requirements,” the Vancouver-based firm said.
AREV CEO and director MikeWithrow said in the release: “We continue to build and secure our supply chain ingredients for use in our formulations.
“This is critical to ensure we have quality ingredients and reliable access to raw materials to be extracted into the key products we are developing to address malnutrition in the context of the increasing viral pandemics of our contemporary world.
“Our development with the Phnom Penh agriculture initiative to cultivate mycelium for the market introduction of SUS-TAINN will ensure that the raw material sourcing is not subject to the dramatic price fluctuations consistently demonstrated across international commodities markets.”
And AREV senior scientific adviser Roscoe M Moore said in the release: “Unlike the majority of other RUTFs on the market, AREV Nanotech’s SUS-TAINN is being developed to address the disparities in current therapeutic strategies to address chronic and severe malnutrition in resource poor settings.
“Too often international humanitarian agencies cannot adjust their procurement strategies based on fluctuating capital structures that determine access to essential public health commodities.”
AREV added: “RUTFs are energydense, micronutrient-enriched pastes that have a nutritional profile similar to the traditional F-100 milk-based diet used for inpatient therapeutic feeding programmes and are often made of peanuts, oil, sugar and milk powder.”
On the Canadian Securities Exchange, AREV’s share price fell by C$0.03 (2.38 US cents) or 7.46 per cent to close at C$0.31 (US$0.25) on February 23 for a market capitalisation of C$5.257 million, with 294,393 shares traded.
Since reaching an all-time high of more than $2,000 per ounce in August, gold has been trading in a downward channel, with average daily price movements of around $30.
Golden FX Link Capital chief financial adviser George Black shared some of the factors affecting the direction of gold going forward and how traders can profit on the volatility.
The first thing to consider is inflation, which is the weakening of a currency’s value.
According to top economists in the research division of the Federal Reserve, the 10-year break-even inflation rate is currently near a five-year high.
This means that market players anticipate a high level of inflation over the next 10 years.
Forty per cent of all US dollars in existence have been printed in the past 12 months, an unprecedented amount of money printing, the effects of which will soon penetrate into many areas of the economy.
Gold is a hedge against the effects of inflation, and this is one factor that will contribute to the stabilisation of gold at these higher price levels.
Gold does not pay interest, however, and US Treasury yields are rising, which will cause some investors to transfer funds from gold assets into US bonds.
As the US economy recovers and the economic outlook strengthens, more selling pressure may be seen as gold speculators take profit and evaluate the new environment.
This could temporarily curb the bigger up-trend in gold, as investors will want to take advantage of the higher interest rates of the more attractive US government bonds.
The best angle to profit in these conditions is by day trading gold using the average daily range.
Buying gold is recommended at $1, 690 per ounce, setting the takeprofit function at $1,830 per ounce and the stop-loss function at $1,650.
However, traders can look for $30 daily jumps in gold to enter a short position and keep a tight trailing stop on the retrace.
HONG Kong may be in its worst recession in years but its luxury property market is still thriving after a five-bedroom apartment broke records with its HK$459.4 million (US$59.24 million) price tag.
While there have been more expensive properties sold in Hong Kong, the 3,378-squarefoot (313.83sqm) penthouse in the affluent Mid-Levels neighbourhood set a new benchmark for price per square foot at $17,500 ($188,368 per sqm).
The sale, reported by local media on February 17 and recorded in the development’s register of transactions, illustrates the stark inequality in Hong Kong.
Recent political instability coupled with the coronavirus has hammered the economy, which contracted a record of 6.1 per cent last year. Unemployment is currently at 6.6 per cent, the highest in 16 years.
But bellwether luxury property sales suggest the super rich are weathering the storm just fine.
The price paid by the unidentified buyer for the property at 21 Borrett Road – a newly built luxury apartment tower – beat the previous price per square foot record set in 2017.
And it comes a week after a consortium set a new record when it paid $935.2 million – or $6,450 per square foot – for a piece of land on The Peak, the mountain that dominates Hong Kong Island and remains the city’s most exclusive neighbourhood.
Hong Kong is a city of stark contrasts – where impoverished elderly people can be seen collecting cardboard to recycle on streets filled with supercars and luxury goods stores.
The cramped financial hub regularly tops various rankings of cities with the least affordable housing in the world, with even the cheapest apartments far out of reach for most workers.
Successive governments have failed to tackle inequality or the yawning shortage of housing, something that helped fuel huge democracy protests in recent years.
A 2019 report by real estate firm CBRE ranked Hong Kong as the most expensive city for residential property, with an average price of $2,091 per square foot.
It listed the average property price in Hong Kong as $1.2 million – far above secondplaced Singapore at $874,372.
A report that year by UBS said a “skilled worker” needed 22 years of income to afford a 60sqm flat, up from 12 years a decade ago, with salaries staying largely the same since 2008.
But the ultra wealthy have seen their fortunes continue to grow.
According to Knight Frank’s global wealth report, the number of billionaires in Hong Kong grew from 40 in 2013 to 71 in 2019, giving the city one of the highest ratios of billionaires per capita in the world.