Farming, Forests, Water & Fishing (No Petroleum Added)

The EU's bailout of Cyprus has elicited unusually frank and vehement criticism from the finance experts grouped in the IMF's Executive Board.

Paulo Nogueira Batista, 58, is a fan of classical music, a connoisseur of German literature and an advocate of straight talking. As executive director for his native Brazil and 10 smaller countries, he is a member of the Executve Board, the highest-ranking operational decision-making body of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

His counterparts from the United States and Europe have often witnessed the combative personality of this economist with wavy, salt-and-pepper hair, who attended a high school in Bonn for two years in his youth. Batista is one of the most persistent critics of Western dominance in the IMF.

He often derides the Washington-based organization, headed by French politician Christine Lagarde, as a "North Atlantic monetary fund," because, as he argues, Americans and Europeans are primarily interested in defending their interests and preventing emerging economies like Brazil from exerting their rightful influence in the fund. He resents the Europeans for increasingly availing themselves of the fund's assets to combat their euro crisis, even though they have enough money of their own. "The euro countries abuse their power within the IMF," Batista is fond of saying.

From saving the environment to liberating intellectual property, learning to recognize and appreciate common property is the first step toward protecting the commons.

America’s agriculture is highly dependent on specific, stable climate conditions. Yet global warming is wreaking havoc on our nation’s farmlands — an industry that produces nearly $300 billion per year in commodities.

A marvel of nature, the lakes of Ounianga in the Sahara Desert have lasted thousands of years and withstood dramatic climate change. Now, a German geologist has analyzed lakebed sediments to shed light on a spectacular chapter in human history.

Google has released some stunning time-lapse images of our changing planet, highlighting some of the most startling impacts made by humans.

Local control has improved woodlands, cut carbon emissions and created economic benefits

KATHMANDU (AlertNet) - When Reshma Kunda talks about the land surrounding her village, her voice is full of reverence.

“Our mountains and forests are like our gods. They give us grass, wood for fuel, water, medicines and food - everything we need for our lives,” says the farmer who lives in Godavari Kunda village, about 15 km (10 miles) southeast of the Kathmandu valley.  “In return, we owe them protection (and must) keep them safe for future generations.”

Other residents of Godavari Kunda agree. They are part of a movement that has seen local communities across Nepal take charge of forest management - conserving and restoring woodland to mitigate the effects of climate change. At the same time, they are receiving sustainable economic benefits.

Today, a quarter of Nepal’s forests are managed by nearly 20,000 community forest user groups (CFUGs), the first of which were established by non-governmental organisations in the 1980s.

The EU tightens up an existing ban on "shark finning" - the practice of slicing off a shark's fins at sea for sale to Asian markets.

The ban for EU fishing crews has existed since 2003, but with special permits they were still allowed to remove the fins from shark carcasses.

Ministers have now agreed with MEPs to eliminate that legal loophole.

The Shark Trust campaign group says the EU exports 27% of the fins traded in Hong Kong - a major fin-trading centre.

Hong Kong accounts for more than half of all the fins traded worldwide, the group says. They are used in soups and traditional cures in Asia, where they are valued much more highly than the rest of the shark.

Finning is deemed cruel because the fins are often removed while the shark is still alive - it then drowns when it is thrown back into the sea.

A statement from the EU Council, which groups ministers from the 27 member states, said finning had contributed to a serious decline in shark populations.

It said that "with its policy of fins remaining attached, the EU will also be in a better position to push for shark protection at international level".

Scientists from Australia's University of Adelaide have identified a lake so pristine that they're calling it "God's bathtub."

Although typical freshwater ecosystems vary because of climate change and man's influences, Blue Lake on North Stradbroke Island in Queensland has remained largely unchanged for 7,500 years, according to a recent study.

The water is so clear researchers could see to the bottom -- 33 feet below.

"It's like God's bathtub," Cameron Barr, a researcher at the university and the study's lead author, told the Australian Associated Press (AAP). "It is beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful."

In New Zealand—or Aotearoa, as it is known to the indigenous Māori people—the Whanganui River has been awarded personhood status.

After being released into the wild in Germany just last month, a herd of wisents has welcomed its first calf. The first European bison to be born free in Germany in centuries has been named "Quintus," and appears to be healthy.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is rapidly losing its coral, to the point that UNESCO may soon place the natural wonder on its "in danger" list. Climate change is one culprit, but so is the country's booming extraction industry.

After the careful removal of two large dams, salmon are returning to Washington's Elwha River.

As the last block of concrete was pulled from the riverbed, the Elwha River in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State flowed freely for the first time in over 100 years. The river was historically one of the most productive salmon streams for its size in the Pacific Northwest. Four hundred thousand salmon once swam its length each year but, in the century since the dam’s construction, that number had fallen to a few thousand.1 Within months of the dam’s removal, nature has rushed back: over 200 salmon have already returned. The prospect of a river teeming with silverbacked salmon weighing over 45 kilograms each may no longer remain a hazy memory of local Native American tribes.

Every fall at Maine's Common Ground Country Fair, the Lollapalooza of sustainable agriculture, John Bunker sets out a display of eccentric apples.

From Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer: With many of the world's ecosystems threatened or endangered by human activities like logging and urbanization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published its criteria for a...

Quartz: Forget the plight of the polar bear for a moment and consider the coming collapse of the $30 billion honey bee economy in the US.

Greeks Fight Canadian Gold-Diggers - Any sense of tranquility that hangs around the mountain of Skouries in northern Greece, 80 km east of Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki, is a façade.