The Miraculous Web of Life Sustains ALL Species on Planet Earth – Healthy Ecosystems, Healthy Humans. WITHOUT NATURE WE DO NOT EXIST. PERIOD. To the degree Nature is sick, so are we. We humans must reintegrate into the greater web of life as a species within it and not separate from it, by returning to respect and restoring balance and harmony to that which supports all life on this planet ... Nature ... #GDP should be replaced by #EcoEconomics ... Putting front and center the concerns for how we are destroying and objectifying the natural world for profit #Conservation #Ecosystems #Wildlife #Forests #Environment #Biodiversity #Ecoeconomics #CSR #GDP #Anthropocene
Why on earth are many of the world's most powerful technology companies, including Google, showing a special interest in an 87-year-old Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk?
The answer is that all of them are interested in understanding how the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay as he is known to his hundreds of thousands of followers around the world, can help their organisations to become more compassionate and effective.
In a sign that the practice of mindfulness is entering the mainstream, Thay has been invited later this month (September 2013) to run a full day's training session at Google's main campus in California...
Global tech companies are connecting to the power of mindfulness and meditation in order to drive sustainability and happiness...
THICH NHAT HANH: ONLY LOVE CAN SAVE US FROM CLIMATE CHANGE
Leading spiritual teacher Thay suggests that our search for fame, wealth, power and sexual gratification provides the perfect refuge for people to hide from the truth about the many challenges facing the world. Worse still, our addiction to material goods and a hectic lifestyle provides only a temporary plaster for gaping emotional and spiritual wounds, which only drives greater loneliness and unhappiness..... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/zen-master-thich-nhat-hanh-love-climate-change
September 15, 2013 The Real News VIDEO REPORT PHILIPPINE ACTIVISTS FIGHT BACK AGAINST CORPORATE AND MILITARY FORCES DESTROYING THEIR LAND, FORESTS AND LIVELIHOODS Corporate agri-businesses like U.S.-based Dole, Del Monte, Monsanto, along with international and Philippine mines, are polluting waterways and destroying the surrounding farms. Chinese, European, Canadian, and Filipino mines are stripping away the mountains to get at what some estimate to be the largest iron deposit in the world. There also some of the most significant gold, nickel, and copper reserves in Asia. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10725
BANKS PUT A PRICE ON EARTH'S LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS. OLD ECONOMICS OR SUSTAINING POLICY? http://sco.lt/64wUHx
November 12, 2008 ETC Group WHO OWNS NATURE? ETC Group released a 48-page report, "Who Owns Nature?" on corporate concentration in commercial food, farming, health and the strategic push to commodify the planet's remaining natural resources http://www.etcgroup.org/content/news-release-who-owns-nature-0
August 14, 2013 Friends of The Earth ▶ PILOT STUDY FINDS PLANTS SOLD AS "BEE FRIENDLY" PRETREATED WITH PESTICIDES WITHOUT WARNING LABELS http://www.foe.org/news/blog/gardeners-beware
▶ AGRICHEMICAL GIANT, SYNGENTA, FAULTS EU PEER-REVIEWED STUDY TO CURB THEIR KILLER PESTICIDES http://sco.lt/8fqLQ1
A growing body of science has implicated neonicotinoids (neonics), which are used in agriculture and also for cosmetic purposes on garden plants, as a key factor in recent global bee die-offs. Beekeepers across the country reported losses of 40-90 percent of their bees last winter. The European Union is set to suspend the use of three neonic pesticides later this year, after a scientific review by European Food Safety Authority found that neonicotinoids pose an unacceptably high risk to bees.
▶ THE NEONICOTINOID VIEW: Peter Jenkins Discusses EPA Lawsuit filed by Beekeepers & Env Groups LISTEN via YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmHcN6w
--- WATCH ---
A Must see VIDEO for all. Dr. David Suzuki
▶ "WHAT ARE ROUNDUP READY & Bt PESTICIDE GMO CROPS?"
▶ OBAMA'S SECRETIVE TRADE PACTS MOVING US TOWARDS CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AS CSR AND SOVERIGN RIGHTS NEGOTIATED AWAY http://sco.lt/5G9V0T
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▶ ARE YOU EATING CLONED PIG? CLONING FOOD ANIMALS ON AN INDUSTRIAL SCALE: CHINA ENTERS USA FOOD MARKET - UNLABELLED, UNREGULATED, NO OVERSIGHT http://sco.lt/5mHzqz
VIDEO:
-▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEM, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHT, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALE http://sco.lt/4l725B
SHARK FIN SOUP
▶ 100 MILLION SLAUGHTERED EACH YEAR, JUST FOR THEIR FINS: SHARK POPULATIONS PLUMMET BY 90%...COULD BE EXTINCT IN A FEW YEARS http://sco.lt/6lqeED
POLLUTION - LAND AND WATER
▶ RESTORING RIVERS: THE LIFEBLOOD OF BOTH HUMAN AND ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES http://sco.lt/5tVYLB
POLLUTION - CLIMATE CHANGE
▶ WORLD CAN'T WAIT UNTIL 2020 ON CLIMATE CHANGE, SAYS NEW, HIGHLY DISTURBING INTERNATONAL ENERGY AGENCY REPORT http://sco.lt/58qhhh
Farmers and landowners can play a leading role in achieving A Living Landscape by managing their land to protect and enhance wildlife.
Across the UK, The Wildlife Trusts are working closely with farmers and landowners to secure nature’s recovery. A healthy natural environment underpins sustainable farming systems, and likewise farming and land management are critical to creating A Living Landscape, where farmland is producing food but also bursting with wildlife.... http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/living-landscape/campaigns/cap-reform/farming-living-landscape
BUT FARMLAND WILDLIFE IS IN TROUBLE:
- Many species are dependent on farmland, particularly birds like the tree sparrow, corn bunting, skylark and yellowhammer, but populations of farmland birds have fallen by 48% since 1970.
- Bumblebees, butterflies and mammals like the brown hare have also seen major declines.
- We have lost 97% of our wildflower grasslands due to intensification or conversion to arable land.More than 100,000 km of hedgerows were destroyed between 1984 and 1990.
- ▶ KEEPING NATURE IN OUR FUTURE: HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS ESSENTIAL FOR ECONOMIC AND PLANETARY SURVIVAL http://sco.lt/99SfhJ
- ▶ OUR INDUSTRIAL, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH http://sco.lt/5OxU8n
Just as social insects (like ants) divide tasks, so too can we humans. Emulating and imitating nature’s best and time-tested patterns and strategies, biomimicry, as a design discipline, can be applied to our businesses and communities. Be it following the leadership that came before us, adopting a flat versus hierarchical leadership style, or being responsive and adaptable to change – natural systems and processes provide cues and inspiration if we stop long enough to take notice....http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/10/mimicking-nature-organize-like-ants-move-mountains/
-▶ NATURE HAS THE ANSWERS: HEADS UP FOR THE GATHERING ROBOT SWARM.The idea for swarms of robots working together comes from nature. Army ants link themselves together to form rafts and bridges, and neurons in a brain fire off signals that collectively create intelligence.http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2014/08/heads-gathering-robot-swarm
SCIENTIST CAN'T EXPLAIN THIS CRAZY ANT BEHAVIOR, BUT THEY LOVE IT - Forget swarms of nanobots taking over the world—if something is going to band together to rise against humans, my money is on ants. Look at this video of them forming a chain to move something way bigger than any individual ant. Humans, faced with the same task, would probably devolve into trying to invent some kind of drone to do this for them.http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/scientists-cannot-explain-this-crazy-ant-behavior-but-they-love-it/379390/
Modern Farmer, April 22, 2014 ▶ ANT FARM: THESE INSECT COWBOYS HARVEST, HERD AND MILK: Learning to farm is considered the beginning of modern civilization. We praise ourselves as very intelligent creatures capable of learning to grow crops and keep cattle, but we are hardly the first species to acquire the skill. Ants — ants! — mastered husbandry way before us — about 50 million years ago, and they still continue farming today.http://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/meet-earths-oldest-farmers-ants/
-▶ NATURE HAS THE ANSWERS: HEADS UP FOR THE GATHERING ROBOT SWARM.Researchers build a 1000-strong swarm, which could lay the groundwork for robot construction crews or robot search-and-rescue parties. The idea for swarms of robots working together comes from nature. Army ants link themselves together to form rafts and bridges, and neurons in a brain fire off signals that collectively create intelligence.http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2014/08/heads-gathering-robot-swarm
Mongabay, April 14, 2014 ▶ ANTS PLANT RAINFORESTS, ONE SEED AT A TIME.Deforestation is destroying forests around the world, but its effects are especially obvious in the Amazon Basin. Due to cattle ranching, soybean farming, logging, and slash-and-burn agriculture, the rainforest is disappearing at a rapid pace. In 2011, mongabay.com reported that a whopping 52.7 percent of Bolivia’s trees have been cut down, one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. But a recent study published in the Journal of Ecology offers a unique solution to replanting the deforested landscapes: ants.http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0414-dulaney-ants-rainforests.html
Science Daily, January 14, 2014 ▶ PLANTS COMPETE FOR FRIENDLY ANTS. ANT ARE POLLINATORS TOO.Many woodland plants rely on ants to disperse their seeds; such seed dispersal increases the plant population's chance of survival. New research has recently demonstrated that ant-dispersed plants (myrmecochores) compete for ant dispersers by staggering seed release. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140114114138.htm
▶ SOME AMAZING ANT FACTS: Australian Sugar Ants Walk In Circles When Losthttp://sco.lt/8KBnOr
Christian Science Monitor, February 20, 2014 ▶ ANTS BUILD RAFTS -- OUT OF THEIR BABIES. IT'S ALL ABOUT PROTECTING THEIR QUEEN.Ants navigating through floods link with each other to build rafts, placing their buoyant offspring at the bottom of the raft, finds a new study....http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0220/Apparently-ants-build-rafts.-Out-of-their-babies.
A TED VIDEO Louie Schwartzberg: TED.com "HIDDEN MIRACLES OF THE NATURAL WORLD" We live in a world of unseeable beauty, so subtle and delicate that it is imperceptible to the human eye. To bring this invisible world to light, filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg bends the boundaries of time and space with high-speed cameras, time lapses and microscopes. http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_hidden_miracles_of_the_natural_world
- ▶ LARGE SCALE BIODIVERSITY IS VITAL TO MAINTAINING ECOSYSTEM AND HUMAN HEALTHhttp://sco.lt/5gy5Q1
-▶ KEEPING NATURE IN OUR FUTURE: HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS ESSENTIAL FOR ECONOMIC AND PLANETARY SURVIVALhttp://sco.lt/99SfhJ
SF Globe, September 24, 2014 ▶ WOLVES INTRODUCED TO PARK TO REVITALIZE ECOSYSTEM. In 1995, naturalists re-introduced wolves into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. These wolves were on their own initially but that soon spiraled into something much more amazing.http://sfglobe.com/?id=14064&src=share_fb_new_14064
THE YELLOWSTONE CASE (14.45) A very good example of how vital the role of top predators is in ecosystems is shown in Yellowstone with the reintroduction of wolves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAGEXDlUHDE
WATCH: GRIZZLY BEARS AND WOLVES OF YELLOWSTONE(44:29)
A video of short clips showing different methods of cruel wolf hunting. The truth about wolf hunting and ways in which you can help stop this cruel and unnecesary practice... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN69cfHiB-I
This is an incredible video detailing the positive effects wolves have on the eco system! It first started by changing the behavior of the deer; they stopped going into certain areas they knew the wolves could catch them easily. That enabled trees to grow higher than they ever have! They regenerated forests, stabilized the river banks which grew more vegetation which allowed for more wildlife to thrive. The river changed in response to the wolves; they changed the physical geography by just existing within nature! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q#t=96
"For more wonder, rewild the world" by George Monbiot. Watch the full talk, here: http://bit.ly/N3m62h
▶ WOLF POPULATIONS SHOULD BE ASSESSED BY PACKS, NOT INDIVIDUALS: WOLVES MATE FOR LIFE “Wolves are perhaps the most social of all nonhuman vertebrates. A ‘pack’ of wolves is not a snarling aggregation of fighting beasts, each bent on fending only for itself, but a highly organized, well-disciplined group of related individuals or family units, all working together in a remarkably amiable, efficient manner.”http://www.mexicanwolves.org/index.php/news/1174/51/Op-Ed-Wolf-Populations-Should-Be-Assessed-by-Packs-Not-Individuals
PBS Nature (53:10) A SUPERB WATCH ▶ "RADIOACTIVE WOLVES" CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER 25 YEARS ON. After a massive man-made destruction, still uninhabitable for man, nature reclaims herself in ironic ways. What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled? The historic nuclear accident at Chernobyl is now 25 years old. Filmmakers and scientists set out to document the lives of the packs of wolves and other wildlife thriving in the “dead zone” that still surrounds the remains of the reactor... http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/radioactive-wolves/full-episode/7190/
Mongabay, August 13, 2014 '▶ 'NATURAL RESERVES' NO MORE: ILLEGAL COLONISTS DEFOREST HUGE PORTIONS OF NICARAGUAN PROTECTED FORESTS -- ALL BUT DECIMATED.For centuries the forest survived as the sole home of the Rama and Kriol communities, supporting a wealth of fauna, from the mighty jaguar to the shy agouti. Today, both the fauna and people face a real and ever-present risk of being evicted from the only land they know.http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0813-gfrn-watsa-silva-gorda.html?n3ws1ttr
Mongabay, September 23, 2014 ▶ DISSOLVING PULP: THE THREAT TO INDONESIA'S FORESTS YOU'VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF.Pull out some of your favorite items of clothing, check the label, and if you see Rayon, viscose, modal, or tencel among the fabrics it’s made of, you’re wearing a textile made from chemically dissolving pulp. And that could mean you’re wearing forest destruction. http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0923-gfrn-gaworecki-dissolving-pulp.html
▶ ECOCIDE: A PLAGUE OF DEFORESTATION SWEEPS ACROSS SOUTHEAST ASIA WITH TERRIBLE LOSS OF WILDLIFE AND BIODIVERSITYhttp://sco.lt/4lJ5ZR
▶ WORLD BANK AND UN CARBON OFFSET SCHEME 'COMPLICIT' IN GENOCIDAL LAND GRABS - NGOshttp://sco.lt/5IxW2j
Rainforest Rescue ▶ AUSTRALIA: KOALAS CRY FOR HELP - PROTEST. PETITION The cry of a koala on one of the last trees. The Australian timber industry is cutting down thousands of hectares of former habitat of the koalas. Now journalists and activists present alarming evidence. Many koalas are killed or severely injured by automatic harvesters. Please sign our letter of protest to the Australian government.... https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/mailalert/925/australia-koalas-cry-for-help
▶ WEST PAPUA: 226 THOUSAND HECTARES OF VIRGIN FOREST WILL BE RAZED FOR CORPORATE PALM OIL DESTROYING ALL LIFE & COMMUNITIES WITHIN IThttp://sco.lt/67I9ZJ
Mongabay, August 11, 2014 ▶ INDONESIA'S CHILDREN SEE RAVAGED ENVIRONMENT IN THEIR FUTURE. A generation ago, Borneo was one of the wildest places on the planet, a stronghold for species like orangutan, pygmy elephants, Sumatran rhinos, and clouded leopards among tens-of-thousands of other. But decades of logging and oil palm plantations has changed the landscape of Borneo forever: in fact a recent study found that the island has lost 73 percent of its intact lowland forest and 30 percent of its total forest cover since 1973. In the face of this large-scale environmental destruction, a new study in PLOS ONE finds that Indonesian Borneo's children have a pessimistic view of their future, predicting rising temperatures, wildlife declines, and continued destruction of the island's great rainforests. http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0811-hance-kalimantan-children.html
Humans have gained unprecedented supremacy over the seas in a short space of time, thanks to potent technological advances such as satellite tracking devices and engines so formidable they can drag nets big enough to engulf a cathedral. Add in the impact of pollution, from the likes of fertiliser run-off or discarded plastic, and the oceans have changed more in the past 30 years than in all of human history.
In most places, the oceans have lost more than 75 per cent of their “megafauna” – large creatures such as whales, sharks, dolphins, rays and turtles. Numbers of some species – oceanic whitetip sharks; American sawfish – are down by as much as 99 per cent. For every 20 leatherback turtles in the Pacific 50 years ago, only one remains...http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9601c144-9dcd-11e1-838c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vqzpHIBt
VIDEO
*** "SEA THE TRUTH -- by 2048 THE OCEAN WILL BE EMPTY! (1:00:15 full-length, HiQ) http://sco.lt/5Nk4Kv
VERY IMPORTANT WATCH.... THE TERRIBLE PRICE OF SUBSIDIZING CORPORATE FISHERIES - With Compliments of http://www.seathetruth.nl/en/
CLIMATE CHANGE AND OCEAN ACIDIFICATION. HIGHEST LEVELS IN 55 MILLION YEARS - ARCTIC COULD BE ICE FREE IN... http://sco.lt/6srluz
WATCH
VIDEO:
*** THE WILD AND BEAUTIFUL BERING SEA ~ Wolfram Publications This beautiful, wild place, home to one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet is at risk. Unsustainable fishing will continue destroying essential habitat in the Bering Sea Canyons, and taking massive amounts of fish that other animals depend on to survive - unless we act now to protect it http://wolfram-publications.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-wild-and-beautiful-bering-sea.html
Take a deep breath and imagine the oceans... Short Greenpeace documentary outlining the threats to our oceans and what can be done to restore their health produced in 2005.
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS KILLED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
An Award Winning Documentary by Patrick Rouxel on the Indonesian rainforest, deforestation and orangutan extinction.
This important documentary was filmed in the fast disappearing Indonesian rainforest and is not narrated, however, its message is clear and frightening. The home of the Orangutan and many other wildlife species in Indonesia is being decimated at an alarming rate by the widespread practice of 'slash and burn' to clear the lush rainforest to make way for extensive palm oil plantations...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRPmqNPHALs&feature=related
GREEN has now won top awards from the two most prestigious wildlife film festivals in the world...and more than 30 others...
Make sure everyone you know watches this documentary. We owe it to our friends, the gentle Orangutan, we owe it to our planet, and we owe it to ourselves so that we can learn from it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRPmqNPHALs&feature=related
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THE SECOND IN THE TRIOLOGY BY PATRICK ROUXEL
"ALMA"
A journey into the soul of humanity
A powerful statement about the global industrial economy
"ALMA" explores the devastating impacts of the cattle industry on the Amazon and a powerful statement about the global industrial economy.
Beautifully shot, alternately joyful and horrifying, Alma captures the ecological, and even spiritual, cost of meat, dairy, and leather production in the Amazon. http://sco.lt/5miKgL
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THE SECOND IN THE TRIOLOGY BY PATRICK ROUXEL
"ALMA" is a journey into the soul of humanity - A powerful statement about the global industrial economy
"ALMA" explores the devastating impacts of the cattle industry on the Amazon and a powerful statement about the global industrial economy.
Beautifully shot, alternately joyful and horrifying, Alma captures the ecological, and even spiritual, cost of meat, dairy, and leather production in the Amazon. http://sco.lt/5miKgL
In the 1990s, the Mesopotamian Marshes were virtually destroyed by Saddam Hussein in an attempt to eradicate the Marsh Arabs who lived there. Once the richest wildlife habitat in the Middle East, this “Garden of Eden” was reduced to mile after mile of scorched earth. But Azzam Alwash is making an extraordinary effort to return life to the green paradise he remembers from his childhood. Follow filmmakers David Johnson and Stephen Foote as they chronicle Azzam’s efforts ...VIDEO - NaturePBS
The future of our land, water and climate is under threat but large-scale ecosystem restoration can help reverse this. This short film describes the many benefits of taking up this vital challenge.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvmpnDDt9t4
� THE BIGGEST EVER FINES FOR A COAL COMPANY that violated its water pollution permits: Alpha Natural Resources, which is based in Virginia, and 66 of its subsidiaries.
Twenty-seven-and-a-half million dollars in fines, $200 million for the cleanup. 6,000 violations, violations over 300 state-issued permits, hundreds of streams, tributaries and rivers, 79 active coal mines, 25 coal processing plants, where they put the coal and wash it before it’s shipped, over five Appalachian states.
July 10, 2013 Guardian Environment � WAKE UP TO THE DANGER OF SLUG PESTICIDES Metaldehyde in slug poison and fertilisers is showing up in drinking water, while natural garden predators are dying out
The illegal trade of animals or animal parts has become one of the most lucrative black market activities in the world. Driven by the promise of high profit margins, poachers in Africa – namely militias, armed groups, and insurgent groups – have driven rhinos and elephants close to extinction, while murdering hundreds of park rangers in the process. NGOs and governments now face a race against time to reduce demand for wildlife trade, particularly in Asia, as well as to equip those on the frontline to fight a well-armed enemy.... http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/the-economics-of-the-illegal-wildlife-trade.29-05.html
Wildlife Extra News
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS KILLED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
The Dodo, May 08, 2014 -▶ CHINA STEPS UP: PLEDGE A WHOPPING $100 MILLION TO STOP POACHING China, a notorious source of demand for a massive illegal wildlife trade, is stepping up its game to save wildlife with a massive $100 million donation to combat poaching in Africa. The Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, announced the fund during a visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.
Attention world! PLEASE bouycot Asia. Greed, greed, greed, greed. God, how is it that the powers that be can send people to the moon but can't SAVE the most magnificent animals on this earth.
Asia, what are you going to do after you've murdered all our elephant, rhino etc????? How are you then going to quench your greed and lust?
"It is better to die from bullets than from hunger" In the Philippines, activists put their lives on the line to fight the military and corporations ravaging their country.
-- WATCH --
September 15, 2013 The Real News VIDEO REPORT
"It is better to die from bullets than from hunger" CORPORATE AND MILITARY FORCES DESTROY INDIGENOUS LANDS, FORESTS AND LIVELIHOODS
Corporate agri-businesses like U.S.-based Dole, Del Monte, Monsanto, along with international and Philippine mines, are polluting waterways and destroying the surrounding farms. Chinese, European, Canadian, and Filipino mines are stripping away the mountains to get at what some estimate to be the largest iron deposit in the world. There also some of the most significant gold, nickel, and copper reserves in Asia. http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10725
- ▶ INDONESIA RELOCATES, DISPLACES FAMILIES TO BUILD RESORTS. The People's Coalition for Fisheries Justice Indonesia (KIARA), a sea and land rights advocacy group, says the fate of Mustiadi and his community will become more common under a new government programme to promote investment in islands and coastal areas. KIARA says many more islands will effectively be sold to foreign buyers, trampling the rights of fishermen and threatening traditional livelihoods.... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/indonesia-relocates-families-build-resorts-201412941833390.html
One World News, December 9, 2013 -▶ INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE VITAL FOR BIODIVERSITY, SAY EXPERTS With species disappearing up to 1,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, biodiversity experts say knowledge co-production with indigenous peoples has growing importance. http://oneworld.org/2013/12/05/indigenous-knowledge-vital-for-biodiversity-say-experts/
- ▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT? http://sco.lt/72Hsf3
- ▶ MINING, FOREIGN LAND GRABS ENDANGERING LOCAL COMMUNITIES, ENVIRONMENT AND ECOSYSTEMS http://sco.lt/5M5eLp
- ▶ THE NEW CORPORATE COLONIALISM. DESTRUCTION OF PLANETARY LIFE, INDIGENOUS LAND AND LIVELIHOODS IN THE NAME OF "GROWTH" http://sco.lt/5nT3OT
- ▶ FOREIGN CORPORATIONS DESTROYING ECOSYSTEMS, INDIGENOUS LIVELIHOODS, NULLIFYING LAND RIGHTS, CREATING DEPENDENCY AND POVERTY ON A GLOBAL SCALE http://sco.lt/5vdZgH
- ▶ LAND GRABS: HOW FOREIGN "INVESTMENTS" ARE REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH, LAND AND WATER ACROSS THE GLOBE http://sco.lt/96H2yv
What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled? The historic nuclear accident at Chernobyl is now 25 years old. Filmmakers and scientists set out to document the lives of the packs of wolves and other wildlife thriving in the “dead zone” that still surrounds the remains of the reactor.... http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/radioactive-wolves/full-episode/7190/
VIDEO (5:13) THE ANIMALS OF CHERNOBYL Biologist Timothy Mousseau has been studying the lasting effects of radiation on the flora and fauna of Chernobyl, Ukraine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG-nwQBBfmc
A new book from National Geographic photographer Gerd Ludwig documents the worst nuclear disaster in history with sobering but stunning images. Ludwig visited Chernobyl nine times in 20 years to tell the stories of the lives of the victims, the exclusion zone and the abandoned city of Pripyat. The book also contains an essay from former president Mikhail Gorbachev on how the accident changed the course of the world's history by accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union
Intercontinental Cry Magazine, December 5, 2014 ▶ FRACKING THE KALAHARI
While a fierce debate rages about fracking in South Africa and elsewhere, the Botswana government has been silently pushing ahead with plans to produce natural gas, keeping the country in the dark as it grants concessions over vast tracts of land, including half of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve – the ancestral home of the San.... http://intercontinentalcry.org/fracking-kalahari-21263/
Alliance Earth -▶ THE HIGH COST TO AFRICA OF AMERICA'S CHEAP GAS
Largely uncontrolled gas companies in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are already drilling and fracking in much of the park, endangering precious water and environmental resources. In Botswana’s longest running court battle the San Bushmen finally won the right to access these water sources and remain in their ancestral land. If the gas industry operates like it does in the USA their victory and the survival of this ancient culture is in question.
OSISA, November 17, 2013 ▶ EXPOSING BOTSWANA'S GAS PLANS - Botswana has been accused of sacrificing the Kalahari, one of the world's most precious wildlife reserves, to commercial fracking while ignoring the environmental risks and local communities who could lose access to scarce water.
▶THE BUSHMEN OF THE CENTRAL KALAHARI GAME RESERVE: BOTSWANA GENOCIDE http://sco.lt/6C6t05
VIDEO:
▶ ETHOPIA - LOCAL TRIBES UNDER THREAT FROM FOREIGN LAND GRAB "INVESTMENTS" http://sco.lt/7anisL
WATCH: Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) THE HIGH COST OF CHEAP GAS A new documentary film – the "High Cost of Cheap Gas" – has uncovered incontrovertible evidence that drilling and fracking are underway in Botswana and that international companies are planning massive gas operations in the future. But there has been little attempt to inform the public, despite growing international concerns about the harmful effects of natural gas production. http://www.osisa.org/economic-justice/south-africa/high-cost-cheap-gas-0
▶ THE BATTLE TO PREVENT FRACKING IN THE KAROO. The Karoo is the largest ecosystem in South Africa and is home to a fascinating diversity of life, all having adapted to survive an unforgiving landscape. Natural gas exploration has now come to invade this magnificent land in order to exploit its natural resources. http://www.theorganicview.com/environment/the-battle-to-prevent-fracking-in-the-karoo/
A TED VIDEO Louie Schwartzberg: TED.com "HIDDEN MIRACLES OF THE NATURAL WORLD" We live in a world of unseeable beauty, so subtle and delicate that it is imperceptible to the human eye. To bring this invisible world to light, filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg bends the boundaries of time and space with high-speed cameras, time lapses and microscopes. http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_hidden_miracles_of_the_natural_world
IMPORTANT WATCH "A THOUSAND INVISIBLE CORDS" (56 min)
The Community of Genes in Ecosystems
The Greater the Biodiversity in the Ecosystem, The Greater Resilience of an ecological community and for adaption. Everything is Interconnected and interdependent. Myopic genetic engineering destroys these connections and breaks the link of naturally evolving organisms “A Thousand Invisible Cords: Connecting Genes to Ecosystems” is a 56-minute eco-documentary that can change how we view the world. Community genetics. No longer will we see species as isolated members of ecosystems but as genetically connected members of a rich interacting community. In the words of the 19th century naturalist, writer, and environmental activist John Muir: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken to everything in the universe.”
- ▶ BIOMIMICRY:
NATURE HAS THE ANSWERS: WE ARE SURROUNDED BY GENIUS - WHOLE SYSTEMS DESIGN BY NATUREhttp://sco.lt/8yvXjV
▶ MODERN, INDUSTRIAL, MONOCROP FARMING IS BURNING UP OUR PLANET. A growing number of organic consumers, natural health advocates and climate hawks are taking a more comprehensive look at the fundamental causes of global warming. And its led them to this sobering conclusion: Modern, industrial, monocrop farming are burning up our planet. How did they reach this conclusion? http://www.nationofchange.org/how-factory-farming-contributes-global-warming-1358786945
TakePart, July 10, 2014 -▶ FORGET AG-GAG LAWS. THIS SUMMER'S LEGAL FIGHT IS OVER THE CORPORATE "RIGHT" TO FARM State constitutional amendments and other legal measures would protect industrial agriculture. http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/10/right-farm-laws
BBC News, June 24, 2014 ▶ GROWING PAINS OF CHINA'S AGRICULTURAL WATER NEEDS. Farming accounts for about 65% of water use in China and the limited resource is coming under pressure from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. The study focused on four major food crops - soya, wheat, rice and corn (maize) - and three livestock groups: ruminant, pork and poultry. Together, these products accounted for 93% of China's domestic food supply in 2005, according to figures from the United Nations. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27978124
April 18, 2014, The Two-Way ▶ CHINA ADMITS THAT ONE-FIFTH OF IT'S FARMLAND IS CONTAMINATED - Unbridled industrialization with almost no environmental regulation has resulted in the toxic contamination of one-fifth of China's farmland, the Communist Party has acknowledged for the first time. http://listen.sdpb.org/post/china-admits-one-fifth-its-farmland-contaminated
Guardian, September 18, 2013 ▶ FOOD CRISIS FEARS PROMPT UN WAKE-UP CALL TO WORLD LEADERS AND BIG AGRIBUSINESS UNCTAD, the UN trade and development body's 2013 Trade and Environment Review, calls on governments to "wake up before it is too late" and shift rapidly towards farming models that promote a greater variety of crops, reduced fertiliser use and stronger links between small farms and local consumers to achieve global food security and tackle climate change http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/18/food-crisis-un-governments
allAfrica, January 07, 2014 ▶ AFRICA: OUR MODERN, WESTERN AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM IS DESTROYING THE EARTH AND OUR HEALTH.
Today our food comes from across the world. More importantly, it is often produced in highly destructive ways, at the lowest possible cost.
Consequently our food production system is responsible for accelerating the rate of destruction of the very ecosystems we are reliant upon in order to maintain our delicate global environmental equilibrium.
We cut and clear the lungs of the world, our tropical rainforests, to feed livestock or grow dishonestly named "biofuels". We bulldoze natural filtration systems and the nurseries for life like wetlands and mangrove swamps to produce luxury foods for obese populations. http://allafrica.com/stories/201401071158.html?viewall=1
VIDEO INVESTIGATION Frontline, June 25, 2014 "RAPE IN THE FIELDS" For the women who pick and process the food we eat every day, getting sexually assaulted, and even raped, is sometimes part of the job. Frontline and Univision partner to tell the story of the hidden price many migrant women working in America's fields and packing plants pay to stay employed and provide for their families. This investigation is the result of a yearlong reporting effort by veteran correspondent Lowell Bergman, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and the Center for Investigative Reporting....http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rape-in-the-fields/
OnEarth, January 6, 2014
▶AQUIFER ALERT: Stretching across eight U,S states, the Ogallala aquifer is the lifeblood of agriculture on the Great Plains. But can it survive a future of drought, pollution, and pipelines? ... Underlying almost 175,000 square miles in eight states, the aquifer sustains nearly one-fifth of all wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle production in the United States. But several years of drought and decades of intensive crop irrigation have left it seriously depleted http://www.onearth.org/articles/2014/01/so-what-exactly-is-an-aquifer-we-explain
Global Research, January 2, 2014 ▶ MONSANTO ROUNDUP: THE IMPACTS OF GLYPHOSATE HERBICIDE ON HUMAN HEALTH . The foodstuffs of the Western diet, primarily grown by industrial agriculture, are increasingly being produced using a two-part system of engineered plant seeds and toxic chemical application. Consequences are most of the diseases and conditions associated with a Western diet, which include gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-roundup-the-impacts-of-glyphosate-herbicide-on-human-health-pathways-to-modern-diseases/5342520
▶ PESTICIDES FOR BIG AG ARE KILLING OUR PLANET: DECIMATING POLLINATORS, DRAGONFLIES AND OTHER AQUATIC INSECTS -- AND YOU http://sco.lt/5XzNlx
August 30, 2013 Sustainable Pulse:
▶ THE NEVER-ENDING TREADMILL OF MORE AND STRONGER PESTICIDE:
Free Documentary Online In the harvest of 1999, 60% of Canada's canola crop, 90% of Argentina's soybean crop, 50% of the US' soybean crop, and 33% of the US' corn crop was genetically engineered. Industrial agriculture is damaging the basis for future production. We've got soil erosion, soil compaction, salinisation, water logging, destruction of beneficial biodiversity, loss of natural enemies of pest... and all that is occurring in an alarming rate. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/fed-up/
▶ FUTURENOMICS: DITCHING OUR OUTMODED AND FOSSILISED ECONOMIC PARADIGM http://sco.lt/5hpBar
WATCH
Emmy Award Winning 1 hr Film - University of Minnesota
▶ "TROUBLED WATERS: A MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORY" ▶
A COMPELLING CASE REVAMPING OF U.S. AGRICULTURAL POLICY
This excellent one hour documentary examines the "unintended consequences" of farming practices on water quality, soil loss and the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. Knitting together federal energy, farm and environmental policies, Through beautiful photography and inspiring narrative, the film puts deliberate emphasis on solutions and provides a hopeful blueprint for progress and positive change... http://www.rememberthispoint.com/?p=212
▶ BIOFUELS: FOOD OR FUEL? RESEARCH SUGGESTS BIOFUELS WILL COST THE EARTH http://sco.lt/8ezJ2X
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT: GazetteNet, November 5, 2013
-▶ BIO-ETHANOL FUEL: THE SECRET DIRTY COST OF OBAMA'S GREEN POWER PUSH. Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined — have vanished on Obama’s watch. Landowners filled in wetlands. They plowed into pristine prairies, releasing carbon dioxide that had been locked in the soil. Sprayers pumped out billions of pounds of fertilizer, some of which seeped into drinking water, contaminated rivers and worsened the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can’t survive. ... 15 million more acres of corn were planted last year than before the ethanol boom http://www.gazettenet.com/home/9190243-95/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas-green-power-push
September 3, 2013 -Sci Dev Net
▶ FARMING AND KNOWLEDGE MONOCULTURES ARE MISCONCEIVED
Food needs can be met with a new vision for agriculture and science In mainstream policy and corporate thinking, scientific knowledge and global markets are considered key for food security. This has resulted in the industrialisation and laboratory research-led intensification of agricultural systems, inputs and food-supply chains. But intensified systems do not meet global food needs — they mostly suit export markets and corporate interests.... an industrial monoculture model of production — of both food and knowledge — avoids its ecological and social costs, while suppressing more effective sustainable alternatives, and underexploits science's potential versatility.... http://www.scidev.net/global/agriculture/opinion/farming-and-knowledge-monocultures-are-misconceived.html
SHORT VIDEO: THE SEVEN MYTHS OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
New Scientist, January 16, 2014 ▶ VERTICAL FARMS SPROUTING UP ALL OVER THE WORLD - Vertical farms aim to avoid the problems inherent in growing food crops in drought-and-disease-prone fields many hundreds of kilometres from the population centres in which they will be consumed. Instead, Dickson Despommier – an ecologist at Columbia University in New York City who has championed vertical farms since 1999 – suggests that food should be grown year-round in high-rise urban buildings, reducing the need for the carbon-emitting transport of fruit and vegetables. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129524.100-vertical-farms-sprouting-all-over-the-world.html#.Utrb8PbTlcw
...was written with contributions from over 60 experts, and finds that "urgent and far-reaching action" is needed to address the "collective crisis" of "rural poverty, persistent hunger around the world, growing populations, and mounting environmental concerns."
However, the call from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) flies in the face of the goals laid out by trade deals now being negotiated including the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership....
▶ THE DANGEROUS NEW SECRETIVE GLOBAL TRADE PACTS WILL IMPACT US ALL. THREATENS SOVEREIGNTY AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP http://sco.lt/74uPth
Post Growth, November 1, 2013 ▶ UNLIMITED COMPETITION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE - CORPORATE FARMING Large farms now dominate crop production in the United States. Although most cropland was operated by farms with less than 600 crop acres in the early 1980s, today most cropland is on farms with at least 1,100 acres, and many farms are 5 and 10 times that size. Meanwhile, in 1987, the average dairy herd size was 80 cows; by 2007, it was 570 cows, In 2012 5,000. The change in hogs was even more striking, from 1,200 hogs removed in a year to 30,000... http://postgrowth.org/unlimited-competition-is-not-sustainable/
▶ AMERICANS EAT THE CHEAPEST FOOD IN THE WORLD, BUT WHAT IS IT REALLY COSTING US? OBESITY PLUS http://sco.lt/6nvbQf
September 13, 2013 Treehugger ▶ WHY KANSAS IS RUNNING OUT OF WATER. If you eat corn or wheat in the United States, there's a good chance it was grown with the help of paleowater left over from the last ice age when glaciers covered the Great Plains.And as neat and healthy as that sounds -- paleowater! -- this is not good news. The Ogallal Aquifer is one of the largest aquifers in the world, running beneath parts of eight states in the central US. And it is this giant, ancient aquifer that is being sucked dry faster than rain can keep up. Put another way, we've nearly used up a million-year-old source of water in the 100 or so years we've been tapping into it for irrigation. http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/why-kansas-running-out-water-ogallala-aquifer.html
11 September 2013, Rome - The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report. http://reliefweb.int/report/world/food-wastage-footprint-impacts-natural-resources
▶ DECLINE IN BIODIVERSITY OF FARMED PLANTS AND ANIMALS GATHERING PACE http://sco.lt/7o99MH
▶ FOOD FORESTS CAN MITIGATE RISKS OF 'FEAST OR FAMINE". BIG CORPORATE AG IS NOT THE ANSWER http://sco.lt/8q2M41
▶ THE NEXT GREEN REVOLUTION - HEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS WITHOUT FOSSIL FUELS, LASHINGS OF PESTICIDES AND MONOCROPS http://sco.lt/7H8QPR
August 6, 2013 Resilience
▶ FIXING FOOD AND FARMING WITH A TRUE-COST ECONOMY A paradigm shift is underway in our nation’s approach to food and agriculture. Movements are gaining steam that support organic food, local food, farmers markets, local food security, and food safety. On the food safety front, outrage is growing over the inability to inspect more than two percent of imported food, especially in the wake of food scandals abroad (e.g., melamine in pet food, pork treated with chemicals to taste like beef, deaths of children from school lunches prepared in used pesticide containers)... http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-08-06/fixing-food-and-farming-with-a-true-cost-economy
"Our modern energy-, chemical- and genetically modified organism (GMO)-intensive industrial food and farming systems are the major cause of man-made global warming." Studies show that not only are greenhouse gasses caused by Carbon Dioxide but also by methane and nitrous oxide. Farming includes so many different ways of using fuel form the machinery to the end of food production. Another way farming isn't helping is through deforestation, and wetlands destruction. "When you add it all up, the picture is clear—contemporary agriculture is burning up our planet. And factory farms or, in industry lingo, Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), play a key role in this impending disaster." Climate rise is complex but a few of the top reasons are coal burning, and fossil fuels. To get this under control we would need to stop using 90% of the fosil fuels we are using.
What are our forests really made of? From the air, ecologist Greg Asner uses a spectrometer and high-powered lasers to map nature in meticulous kaleidoscopic 3D detail -- what he calls “a very high-tech accounting system” of carbon. In this fascinating talk, Asner gives a clear message: To save our ecosystems, we need more data, gathered in new ways...
Mongabay, May 08, 2014 - ▶ SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES: NEW HOLISTIC 'ONE HEALTH' CONNECTS HUMANS, ANIMALS AND ECOSYSTEMS. Recently, the dilemma of human–wildlife conflict has created great opportunity to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems for both people and ecosystems. The emerging holistic “One Health” movement explicitly recognizes the inextricable connections between human, animal, and ecosystem health, and is leading not only to new scientific research but also to projects that help people rise out of poverty, improve their health, reduce conflicts with wildlife, and preserve ecosystems, such as Bwindi’s tropical montane forest...http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0501-nicole-sri-ehp-one-health.html
VIDEO (10:00) OUR FORESTS ARE DYING, ARE WE NEXT? Trees are the terrestrial lungs of the planet, and they are dying all over the globe. Government agencies and mainstream media are not reporting on the unfolding cataclysm of this die off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzix8TiHR8
IMPORTANT WATCH "A THOUSAND INVISIBLE CORDS" (56 min)
The Community of Genes in Ecosystems
The Greater the Biodiversity in the Ecosystem, The Greater Resilience of an ecological community and for adaption. Everything is Interconnected and interdependent. Myopic genetic engineering destroys these connections and breaks the link of naturally evolving organisms “A Thousand Invisible Cords: Connecting Genes to Ecosystems” is a 56-minute eco-documentary that can change how we view the world. Community genetics. No longer will we see species as isolated members of ecosystems but as genetically connected members of a rich interacting community. In the words of the 19th century naturalist, writer, and environmental activist John Muir: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken to everything in the universe.” http://vimeo.com/40615050
Ensia, August 12, 2014 -▶ ECOSYSTEMS ARE NOT MACHINES. If we want to save the world, we need to treat nature more as an organism and less as disposable and replaceable technology.http://ensia.com/voices/ecosystems-are-not-machines/
▶ DEFORESTATION, MINING RISES AGAIN IN BRAZIL'S AMAZON IMPACTING ECOSYSTEMS, CLIMATE, DEVASTATING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIEShttp://sco.lt/6831nN
VIDEO
"Capitalism: A Ghost Story" CAPITALIST POWER GRAB OF RESOURCES IN EMERGING NATIONS. An Evening with Arundhati Roy and Siddhartha Deb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tkQyqLnFbk
▶ ECUADOR TO SELL A THIRD OF IT AMAZON RAINFOREST TO CHINESE OIL COMPANIEShttp://sco.lt/5nMisj
- ▶ STOP BURNING RAIN FORESTS FOR PALM OIL AND MONOCROP AGRICULTUREhttp://sco.lt/5Ylp7h
- ▶ DEFORESTATION AND EXTINCTION: CONFUSED KOALA DISCOVERS HE HAS NOWHERE TO GOhttp://sco.lt/4yRATR
- ▶ FOOD FORESTS CAN MITIGATE RISKS OF "FEAST OR FAMINE" - BIG CORPORATE AG IS NOT THE ANSWERhttp://sco.lt/8q2M41
- ▶ NATURAL MIXED FORESTS MORE PRODUCTIVE THAN MEGA INDUSTRIAL MONOCULTUREShttp://sco.lt/8p51lZ
- ▶ THE HIDDEN WORLD OF SOIL UNDER OUR FEET: SOIL AS A LIFELINEhttp://sco.lt/4nJvdp
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS KILLED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
The Dodo, November 21, 2014 -▶IMAGINING A WORLD WITHOUT ELEPHANTS. A poacher’s bullet kills more than elephants — an elephant’s death ricochets through the ecosystem, affecting everything from other animals to the vegetation where the pachyderms roam.https://www.thedodo.com/world-without-elephants-832031961.html
Focusing On Wildlife
-▶ 62% OF ALL AFRICAN FOREST ELEPHANTS SLAUGHTERED IN 10 YEARS = INFOGRAPH
VIDEO BBC News, September 04, 2014 THE ELEPHANT THAT FLEW.
A baby elephant is filmed standing in a small aircraft, eye-to-eye with the pilot, Gary Roberts - an American nurse and missionary. The orphaned calf is the only survivor of a 100 elephant massacre by poachers. This is how Roberts did his best to keep the animal alive.http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29060814
AN INCREDIBLE WATCH "ECHO" AN ELEPHANT TO REMEMBER" PBS Nature: Intro & Full Episode Echo, Africa’s most famous elephant, was the subject of many films and the matriarch of perhaps the most studied wild elephant herd in the world. In May of 2009, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied Echo and her family http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/echo-an-elephant-to-remember/introduction/5755/
THE TRAGIC SLAUGHTER OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ELEPHANTS -- JUST FOR THEIR TUSKS
- ▶ ANTI-POACHING STORY GOES VIRAL IN CHINA - A newspaper story about the impact of the ivory trade has gone viral in China, raising awareness among millions of Chinese, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)...http://news.mongabay.com/2013/1220-china-viral-elephant-story.html
The Dodo, May 08, 2014
-▶ CHINA STEPS UP: PLEDGE A WHOPPING $100 MILLION TO STOP POACHINGChina, a notorious source of demand for a massive illegal wildlife trade, is stepping up its game to save wildlife with a massive $100 million donation to combat poaching in Africa. The Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, announced the fund during a visit to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.
- ▶ WILL ELEPHANTS STILL ROAM EARTH IN 20 YEARS? -- At the start of the 1980s there were more than a million elephants in Africa. During that decade, 600,000 were destroyed for ivory products. Today perhaps no more than 400,000 remain across the continent, according to Samuel Wasser of the University of Washington, who is widely recognized as an authority on the subject. It is a tragedy beyond reckoning and humanity needs to pay attention to the plight of the elephants before it is too late.
-▶ THE ANIMAL-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP: : STATE OF THE ANIMALS 2013 -http://sco.lt/88qOMD
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August 2, 2013 Global Possibilities
- ▶ RANGER, WARRIOR, MOTHER -Sidonie Asseme risks her life to save endangered wildlife from poachers in southeastern Cameroon—all while raising five little future rangers ...http://www.globalpossibilities.org/ranger-warrior-mother/
===========================
EXTINGUISHING OUR WILDLIFE
===========================
- ▶ THE ECONOMICS OF THE ILLEGAL WILDLIFE POACHING TRADE - ONE OF THE MOST LUCRATIVE BLACK MARKETS IN THE WORLDhttp://sco.lt/4q4CB7
Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey won top honor at the 2011 Jackon Hole Wildlife Film Festival, known as the Oscars of nature films! Broken Tail won Best of Festival, Best Script, and Best Human/Wildlife Interactions at the 2012 International Wildlife Film Festival!
The tiger known as Broken Tail was born in Ranthambhore National Park in northern India, a vast, natural reserve for a wide variety of Indian wildlife, but especially famous for its Bengal tigers. Historically revered in Indian tradition, tigers in the area were once protected by maharajahs, and then by government sanctuaries and conservation projects. But poachers have proven to be nearly unstoppable over the years, and tigers have struggled to survive, even with the protection of the park. At one point, there were as few as 26 tigers left in the reserve, and today, the fate of each and every tiger is important to the species as a whole. Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey is the story of the life and death of a tiger destined for greatness, who may still lead the way to a better future for those of his kind.
▶ DEADLY POISON THREAT TO LAST REMAINING TIGERS IN THAILAND AND INDIA - LOSING OUR BIG CATShttp://sco.lt/4o0U9x
WATCH SIBERIAN TIGER QUEST
Full Episode 53:10 PBS Nature Ecologist Chris Morgan travels to far eastern Russia, in search of the Siberian tigers that hold rank in the frozen forests. The film features the work of Korean cameraman Sooyong Park, the first individual ever to film Siberian tigers in the wild. Park spent years in the forest tracking and filming the world’s biggest cat. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/siberian-tiger-quest/full-episode/7916/
Mongabay, June 19, 2014 ▶ CHINESE FISHERMEN GET RARE GLIMPSE OF SWIMMING SIBERIAN TIGER ON PHONE VIDEO. Siberian tigers are imperiled by habitat loss and deforestation, however the biggest threat remains poaching for the animal's body parts which are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The subspecies almost went extinct in the 1930s when its population dropped to just 20-30 individuals. Due to this, a 2011 study found that Siberian tiger genetic diversity in the wild was incredibly low, essentially putting the "effective population" at just 14 animals.http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0619-hance-siberian-tiger-swim-video.html
▶ A DISASTER: LOSS OF TWO THIRDS OF TOP PREDATORS CAUSING GLOBAL ECOSYSTEMS TO COLLAPSEhttp://sco.lt/7XHisr
▶ THE BARBARIC ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE FLOURISHES AND MUST CEASEhttp://sco.lt/6iIjtx
WATCH:
"SAVING LEUSER - TRIPA"
A Short film by Carlos Quiles.
The video is a short story of the long term documentary Saving Leuser. We need the maximum support not just for Tripa but to save the Leuser ecosystem, the only place in the world that hosts five endangered species as tigers, rhinos, orangutans, elephants and bears....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICBxZ4zg8y8
- ▶ EQUADOR SELLING ONE THIRD OF ITS' RAINFORESTS TO CHINA
As oil forces a state of emergency in Peru.
Ecuador owed China more than $7 billion — more than a tenth of its GDP — as of last summer.
In 2009 China began loaning Ecuador billions of dollars in exchange for oil shipments. It also helped fund two of the country's biggest hydroelectric infrastructure projects, and China National Petroleum Corp may soon have a 30 percent stake in a $10 billion oil refinery in Ecuador.
"My understanding is that this is more of a debt issue – it's because the Ecuadoreans are so dependent on the Chinese to finance their development that they're willing to compromise in other areas such as social and environmental regulations," Adam Zuckerman, environmental and human rights campaigner at California-based NGO Amazon Watch, told the Guardian.
The world's growing appetite for cheap palm oil is destroying rain forests and amplifying climate change...Palm oil exports bring Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia $40 billion a year.Yet this profit comes at a terrible toll. Converting forests into oil palm plantations destroys the home of not only orangutans but also such critically endangered creatures as the Sumatran tiger and the Sumatran rhino.
Moreover, the denuding of this land through logging and burning releases large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Much of this forest sits on peatland, the draining and burning of which releases even more carbon dioxide than the clearing of the overlying trees does.... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stop-burning-rain-forests-for-palm-oil
June 26, 2013 Mongabay ▶ -- SMOKE OVER SUMATRA: WHY INDONESIA'S FIRES ARE A GLOBAL CONCERN. As Indonesia’s peatlands are drained and burned, one of the world’s greatest long-term carbon sinks is being transformed into a rapid carbon source . Scientists estimate that during the Indonesian fires of 1997, between 0.81-2.67 gigatons of carbon were released into Earth’s atmosphere (Page et al 2002). This is comparable to 13-40% of the fossil fuels emitted globally that same year, catapulting Indonesia to be ranked the world’s third highest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China and the USA) according to some indices ...http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0626-op-ed-miles-fisher.html
Climate Central, November 26, 2014 ▶ PALM OIL PRODUCTION POSES MAJOR PROBLEMS FOR THE CLIMATE. Peatlands hold up to 28 times as much carbon as rainforests growing on mineral soil. The peat is so carbon rich that if it is buried long enough, say for a million years or so, pressure, time and heat will turn it into coal. A single hectare of peatland rainforest can release 6,000 metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide when it’s converted into a plantation. Researchers estimated that in 2012 nearly 70 percent of the carbon released during the transformation of Sumatran rainforests into palm plantations came from peatlands, a 75 percent increase over their portion of emissions in the 1990s and an indication that palm is increasingly expanding into peat.http://www.climatecentral.org/news/palm-oil-production-climate-18338
▶ PALM OIL COMPANIES IGNORING COMMUNITY RIGHTS, NEW STUDY SHOWS,Members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) are violating the rights of local communities in tropical forests and failing to live up to social and environmental commitmentshttp://news.mongabay.com/2013/1107-dparker-palm-oil-rights.html?n3ws1ttr
▶ DEFORESTATION IS DESERTIFICATION: A DEADLY GAME FOR ALL LIFE - GLOBAL ECOCIDEhttp://sco.lt/7xeu1Z
WATCH
CNN: MISSION TO SAVE SUMATRA'S RAINFOREST
▶ "EXPEDITION: SUMATRA" an eight-part program with our Special Correspondent Philippe Cousteau who explores the Sumatran rainforest and its animal sanctuaries. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/environment/
May 24, 2013 100 Reporters
▶ TWIN FACES IN PALM OIL LAND DEAL. An affiliate of a New York-based venture capital firm has been forced to halt a major palm oil project in Cameroon, amidst charges of misleading investors and violating government agreements in the multi-million dollar land deal...http://100r.org/2013/05/twin-faces-in-land-deal/
Environmental News Network, September 11, 2014 ▶ ILLEGAL LAND CLEARING FOR COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE RESPONSIBLE FOR HALF OF TROPICAL DEFORESTATION. A comprehensive new analysis says that nearly half (49%) of all recent tropical deforestation is the result of illegal clearing for commercial agriculture. The study also finds that the majority of this illegal destruction was driven by overseas demand for agricultural commodities including palm oil, beef, soy, and wood products. In addition to devastating impacts on forest-dependent people and biodiversity, the illegal conversion of tropical forests for commercial agriculture is estimated to produce 1.47 gigatonnes of carbon each year—equivalent to 25% of the EU's annual fossil fuel-based emissions.http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/47822
▶ ECOCIDE: A PLAGUE OF DEFORESTATION SWEEPS ACROSS SOUTHEAST ASIA WITH TERRIBLE LOSS OF WILDLIFE AND BIODIVERSITYhttp://sco.lt/4lJ5ZR
▶ SHOULD COMPANIES COMPENSATE SOCIETY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION FROM WHICH THEY PROFIT? http://sco.lt/5x2tqz
Mongabay, March 15, 2014 -▶ LOGGING GIANT SUSPENDS OPERATIONS TO FEND OFF PLANTATIONS FROM FIRES. In a company statement: "If we can't stop these fires, we will lose company assets."..but whose assets are the forests and all life within them?http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0315-april-pulau-padang-riau-fires.html
▶ "ORANGUTANS IN INDONESIAN FOREST MAY DIE OUT IN WEEKS
Fires raging in an Indonesian swamp forest may have killed a third of the rare Sumatran orangutans. About 200 still live there. Only 12,267 hectares (30,311 acres) of Tripa’s original 60,000 hectares (148,260 acres) of forest remain.The rest has been broken up and degraded as palm oil companies drain the swamp and terminate the life of the forests.http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/orangutans-in-indonesian-forest-may-die-out-in-weeks/507711
Palm oil is increasingly getting attention for being just as destructive to Indonesia's environment and international reputation as the country's coal industry. One more reason to hope Jero Wacik is serious about finally unlocking some of the country's clean energy potential during his time as Energy Minister.
NOTE: Galapagos Conservancy ▶ LONESOME GEORGE DIED IN HIS CORRAL ON SUNDAY, JUNE 25TH 2012 MARKING THE EXTINCTION OF THE PINTA ISLAND SPECIES OF TORTOISE. HE WAS ESTIMATED TO BE 100 YEARS OLD http://www.galapagos.org/about_galapagos/lonesome-george/
Turtles and tortoises have been roaming the planet for 200 million years, but now many of them are endangered by poachers who can sell some animals for as much as $60,000. Lesley Stahl reports from Madagascar http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-race-to-save-the-tortoise-50136708/
▶ GLOBAL WARMING: STUDY SAYS SLOW AND STEADY NOT ENOUGH FOR SOME TURTLE SPECIES IN NORTH AMERICA. More than half of the world’s approximately 330 species of turtles and tortoises are threatened with extinction due to illegal trade and habitat loss, according to the Red List maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Turtles and tortoises, which evolved about 220 million years ago, are at a much higher extinction risk than many other vertebrates, paralleled only by primates, according to the IUCN. Many of the most threatened turtles and tortoises are in Asia. http://summitcountyvoice.com/2013/10/09/global-warming-study-says-slow-and-steady-not-enough-for-some-turtle-species-in-north-america/
Pure Nature Specials - 50:33 TIGER SHARKS AND SEA TURTLES IN NATURE'S WARZONE Raine Island is a harsh cradle for new life for thousands of Pacific green turtles that come to nest each year. Waiting for them is one of the ocean's most ferocious predators - the tiger shark.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC-Kj5KK9Ek
▶ POACHERS KILL 300 ELEPHANTS WITH CYANIDE IN WATERING HOLES, IN WORST MASSACRE IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 25 YEARS
In 2011, at least 17,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks...
Zimbabwe Hwange National Park...seen from the air to be littered with the deflated corpses of elephants, often with their young calves dead beside them, as well as those of other animals. There is now deep concern that the use of cyanide – first revealed in July, but on a scale that has only now emerged – represents a new and particularly damaging technique in the already soaring poaching trade... http://www.treehugger.com/endangered-species/poachers-kill-300-elephants-cyanide-worst-massacre-southern-africa-25-years.html
Wildlife Extra News
▶APPROXIMATELY 229,729 ELEPHANTS BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED AND TRAFFICKED IN FEWER THAN SIX YEARS - INVESTIGATION REVEALS A HIGHLY ORGANISED IVORY TRADE ACROSS ASIA AND AFRICA -
▶ EXTINCTION AHEAD: TWO-THIRDS OF FOREST ELEPHANT SLAUGHTERED BY IVORY POACHERS IN PAST DECADE http://sco.lt/5cG05R
AN INCREDIBLE WATCH "ECHO" AN ELEPHANT TO REMEMBER" (53:10) PBS Nature: Intro & Full Episode Echo, Africa’s most famous elephant, was the subject of many films and the matriarch of perhaps the most studied wild elephant herd in the world. In May of 2009, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied Echo and her family http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/echo-an-elephant-to-remember/introduction/5755/
▶ INSIDE THE GLOBAL INDUSTRY THAT'S SLAUGHTERING AFRICA'S ELEPHANTS -- A CRIMINAL HORROR http://sco.lt/62hDkX
▶ THE TRAGIC SLAUGHTER OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF ELEPHANTS -- JUST FOR THEIR TUSKS http://sco.lt/8GNLvN
▶ NEW THREAT TO CONSERVATION OF WILDLIFE: "CYBERPOACHING" - EXTINCTION NEARS http://sco.lt/6CmpXt
▶ A DISASTER: LOS OF TWO THIRDS OF TOP PREDATORS CAUSING GLOBAL ECOSYSTEMS TO COLLAPSE http://sco.lt/7XHisr
- ▶ RHINOS IN CRISIS: POACHING AND ILLEGAL TRADE TAKING SPECIES TO BRINK OF EXTINCTION http://sco.lt/6LYM3V
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A timely reminder that there is more to life than materialism and profit
YOU ARE INVITED TO FOLLOW MY NEWS AGGREGATES
▶ BIODIVERSITY IS LIFE http://www.scoop.it/t/biodiversity-is-life
▶ OUR OCEANS NEED US http://www.scoop.it/t/our-oceans-need-us
▶ CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY http://www.scoop.it/t/environmental-and-human-health
▶ CLIMATE CHANGE WILL IMPACT US ALL http://www.scoop.it/t/changingplanet
▶ OUR FOOD, OUR HEALTH http://www.scoop.it/t/agriculture-gmos-pesticides