Mining company Gem Diamonds has gained approval from the Botswana government for a controversial diamond mine on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen, under the condition it does not provide the Bushmen with water. The government has, however, reserved the right to use water boreholes drilled by Gem for wildlife.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland is ground zero for world leaders looking to take the next steps in tackling global warming. The international conference is aimed at negotiating a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, and to be finalized in Copenhagen in December of 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Poachers killed an indigenous man on the remote Indian Andaman Islands after him and other members of his tribe, the Jarawa, requested that the poachers share their fish bounty with the tribe. The Andamans and their surrounding waters are protected but an increasing number of poachers have been fishing in the area.
Challa Krishnamurthy started a 20-acre organic farm in Gowribidanur, India with the intention to make it a model for how others should treat the land. But despite his efforts to keep his property free of toxic chemicals, he discovered that a local distillery and sugarcane factory had been dumping untreated waste onto his property as well as others.
Planetsave editor and contributor Alex Felsinger recently previewed the exciting series. In short, it chronicles how the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society stopped Japanese whalers from killing at least 300 whales last winter by using harsh, combative tactics. Read the rest of this entry »
Elephants, hyenas, baboons and birds all gather at the dumping site in Chobe to feed. Just this year, three elephants have died after consuming plastic from the garbage heap.
Thunya Sedodoma, the principal wildlife warden in the park, said that last year, plastics were found in the stomach of a dead elephant. She said it is not uncommon to see plastic in the feces of elephants. Sedodoma said that this year alone, the park has recorded over 70 deaths of wildlife, all related to feeding from the garbage dump.
The Financial Times called the summit “the most ambitious private sector drive yet to reduce waste and pollution in China’s export-focused manufacturing industries.”
“Our environmental footprint is primarily through our supply chain as a company,” says Matt Kistler, head of Wal-Mart’s global sustainability efforts. “So we have the ability to really build a world-class, better quality, better value supply chain.” Read the rest of this entry »
CNN is reporting that 1,500 Chinese Raccon Dogs have died because of a tainted food supply.
Apparently melamine was found in the dog food supply. Melamine is the same deadly chemical that was added to the dairy supply last month and sent Chinese babies to the hospital with kidney stones. Four Chinese babies’ deaths have been blamed on infant formula that was laced with melamine. Some 54,000 other children were sickened.
Zhang determined that the animals died of kidney failure after performing a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs. He declined to say when the deaths occurred but a report Monday in the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper said they had occurred over the past two months.
“First, we found melamine in the dogs’ feed, and second, I found that 25 percent of the stones in the dogs’ kidneys were made up of melamine,” Zhang told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. (from CNN)
We have a problem. We have 1,500 dead dogs but let’s take a look at what these dogs are. These dogs are bred for their raccoon like coat which is used for trim on coats. Are we as a global economy okay with the slaughter of dogs, man’s best friend, for ornamental fabric? Is it acceptable that Melamine is added to the food supply of both humans and animals?
A law protecting the dignity of plants? Laugh if you will. I’m down on my knees in respect and awe. At last the Western World is realizing the dire importance of taking other species into account.
Recently, the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to determine the meaning of dignity when it pertains to plants.
Lo and Behold, the team published a treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” The treatise established that vegetation has innate value and that it is morally wrong to partake in activities such as the “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”
Over a decade ago, an amendment was added to the Swiss constitution in order to defend the dignity of all creatures — including vegetation — against unwanted repercussions of genetic engineering. The amendment was turned into law and is known as the Gene Technology Act. However the law itself didn’t say anything specific about plants, until recently, when the law was amended to include them.
The obvious question at hand: how does this new ruling affect the production of genetically modified organisms? Read the rest of this entry »
Others have been saying it for a while now, but former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has put it most eloquently: there’s no fixing the economic crisis without also taking into account our environmental crises.
“This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems,” Gorbachev told the Inter Press Service (IPS) this week. “In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation.”
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