Sea Turtle Victory

According to press release issued by Oceana, the world's largest ocean conservation organization, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council voted Friday to take immediate action to protect sea turtles from the devastating practice of longline fishing.

Over a recent 18-month period, about 1,000 sea turtles were caught by longlines in the gulf's reef fish fishery -- about eight times the federally mandated capture level. Almost 800 of the turtles were loggerheads, a threatened species that is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The council declared an emergency ruling prohibiting longline gear in water shallower than 50 fathoms for the next six months while the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decides on a long-term solution.

According to the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, about a quarter of a million sea turtles are inadvertently caught by swordfish, tuna and shrimp boats.

GET INVOLVED

• Take the Sea Turtle Restoration Project Seafood Pledge

photo: danbodenstein

The Gloomy Dean

Born in Yorkshire in 1860, William Ralph Inge was an Anglican priest, a professor of divinity at Cambridge and a writer who penned such dour opinions in his articles for the Evening Standard that he was known as "the Gloomy Dean."

Inge's dismal viewpoint probably didn't arise from his works on the ancient Greek philosopher Plotinus who wrote, "There exists no single human being that does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness." More likely it was the result of his work as a staunch advocate of animal rights.

"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation," Inge said, "and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form."

But there are angels in human form, too. A global campaign against the department store chain Nordstrom's is set to be launched the week leading up to Valentine's Day by In Defense of Animals (IDA) and the International Anti-Fur Coalition targeting the cruel fur trade. Events are scheduled in Brazil, Canada, France, Ireland, Israel, the United States and Uruguay.

The Gloomy Dean would have been proud.

GET INVOLVED

• Join the IDA and International Anti-Fur Coalition campaign against Nordstrom's
• Sign a PETA petition urging Urban Outfitters to stop selling fur products

RELATED POSTS

• Fur Free Friday (November 21, 2008)
• New Standards Attempt More Humane Seal Hunt (March 27, 2008)

Gore: "Shake Off Complacency"

"There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes."

These are the opening words of a speech given by Al Gore in Washington on July 17, 2008, about his bold challenge to America: Produce 100 percent of the nation's electricity from renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Yesterday, the former US vice president and founder of the Alliance for Climate Protection testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about his "repowering America" plan, which includes a national upgrade for waste disposal, increased investments in wind, solar and geothermal power, a transition to electric plug-in cars and the creation of a "Unified National Smart Grid" in which "national electricity interstates" move power quickly and cheaply around the country.

On the same day Mr Gore made his speech, Barack Obama said, "I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels, and those are the investments I will make as President."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign Al Gore's letter to Congress supporting his plan to repower America

RELATED POSTS

• The Frontier of "Global Disruption" (December 24, 2008)
• UN Climate Talks Fail (December 20, 2008)
• The Masdar Initiative (December 13, 2008)
• They Came, They Saw, They Were Affected By Climate Change (December 10, 2008)
• Reading List: How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth (December 1, 2008)
• Goodbye Yellow Sun, Hello Brown Clouds (November 30, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: It's (Not Just) the Economy, Stupid (November 24, 2008)
• Schwarzenegger's Hunt for the Eureka Moment (November 16, 2008)
• Farewell Holocene, Hello Anthropocene (November 15, 2008)
• The Rise of the Green-Collar Worker (October 31, 2008)
• Greenpeace Unveils Sweeping Climate Change Plan, With JFK's Help (October 29, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir (October 28, 2008)
• A Former Banker's Battle for the Greening of Europe (October 25, 2008)
• Doing to Oil What Refrigeration Did to Salt (October 22, 2008)
• $700 Billion Bailout Bill Includes Tax Breaks for Dirty Fuel (October 5, 2008)
• On Energy and the Environment, Biden and Palin Find Little Common Ground (October 4, 2008)
• First US Emissions Trading Market Opens (September 28, 2008)
• Turning the Presidential Debates to Energy and Global Warming (September 17, 2008)
• Democrats Demand Release of EPA Climate Change Documents (July 29, 2008)

photo: Benjamin Stephan

Citizen Scientists of the World, Unite

On Christmas Day in 1900, Frank Chapman of the Audubon Society had a revolutionary idea: Instead of hunting birds for the traditional yuletide hunt, he gathered his friends for a bird count. He had no idea at the time, but "citizen science" was born.

The Great Backyard Bird Count. The Cooperative Weather Observer Program. The Wildlife Phenology Program. Frogwatch USA. Project Roadkill.

These are just some of the many "citizen science" initiatives that give regular people (i.e., non-scientists) a chance to get involved in important scientific research.

According to an article in the Daily Green, citizen science "asks countless individuals to contribute their observations of a particular thing -- birds, frogs, flowers -- to a central database, which trained scientists analyze."

"It infinitely extends the observational powers of trained scientists, allowing them to ask -- and answer -- questions about long-term and widespread changes in the environment that otherwise would be impossible to contemplate."

It's like being in school -- but without the tests.

GET INVOLVED

• The Great Backyard Bird Count
• The Cooperative Weather Observer Program
• The Wildlife Phenology Program
• Frogwatch USA
• Project Roadkill
• Monarch Larva Monitoring Project
• Mountain Watch
• Project Budburst
• The Great Sunflower Project
• Milkweed and Nectar Plant Phenology Project
• NestWatch
• Mushroom Observer
• Firefly Watch
• Great Lakes Worm Watch
• Earthdive
  
• MonarchWatch
• World Water Monitoring Day
• Journey North
• Spider WebWatch
• Project PigeonWatch
• Did You Feel It?
• Christmas Bird Count

photo: miss*cee

The River Runs Dry

The Verde River starts outside of Phoenix, moving 170 miles (273.5 km) north, cutting Arizona in half. Fed by springs from the Big Chino aquifer, the Verde is one the state's biggest perennial rivers.

Many species rely on the river and the ecosystems that it nourishes, including Arizona’s bald eagle, the western yellow-billed cuckoo (pictured), the southwestern willow flycatcher, and three protected fish: the Spikedace, razorback sucker and Colorado pikeminnow.

But development is encroaching on this landscape, requiring that Big Chino's water is pumped for other uses. The Big Chino Water Ranch Project, the Chino Valley Water Project and huge future development in Yavapai County are putting the health of the river at risk, which not only endangers the lives of the region's diverse plant and animal species, but also reduces the availability of clean water to Verde Valley farms, American Indian tribes and even communities in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Center for Biological Diversity petition to save the Verde River

photo: US Fish and Wildlife

The Prince and the Dates

Abdulrahman Bandar Al-Saud is a 34 year-old doctoral candidate studying chemistry and chemical engineering at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, one of the leading research universities in the UK. He also happens to be a Saudi Arabian prince, a nephew of King Abdullah. So perhaps it is fitting that his research centers around one of the mythical symbols of Middle Eastern history and culture -- the date palm.

Originating around the Persian Gulf and cultivated as early as 6000 BC in eastern Arabia, Phoenix dactylifera has been grown for its edible fruit, the date. According to a January 24 article on ScientificBlogging.com, Prince Abdulrahman's study focuses on the plant's seed, the date stone, which has unique properties that allow it to extract pollutants from the air and water. His research could lead to the usage of the millions of date stones discarded in Saudi Arabia every year to remove heavy metals and other harmful chemicals from industrial waste.

In the Bible, the date palm was known as "the tree of life." For the many species that may one day benefit from the cleaner air and water created by this emerging technology, the phrase couldn't be more appropriate.

GET INVOLVED

• 50 things you can do to reduce pollution

RELATED POSTS

• Goodbye Yellow Sun, Hello Brown Clouds (November 30, 2008)
• Geo-Engineering the Climate (September 8, 2008)
• Visiting the Most Polluted City on Earth (August 8, 2008)
• Hundreds of Ducks Dead After Landing in Toxic Waste (May 11, 2008)

photo: calafellvalo

Dismembering the Earth's Heart and Lungs

In Brazil, cows graze in newly-planted pasture in Brazil -- pasture that once was forest.

According to the Center for International Forestry Research, this deforestation is largely a result of an economic reality -- people around the world like to eat beef from Brazil.

A new report by the National Science Foundation says that deforestation is the "dismembering the Earth's functional heart and lungs."

Robert Walker, a professor of geography at Michigan State University and an expert on the Amazon, says that during that last thirty years, 6,500 square miles of Brazilian forest (an area bigger that Connecticut) has been cut down to make room for the cattle industry, making Brazil the most aggressive deforesting nation in the world -- also making it the fifth or sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

The main destinations of Brazilian beef are Latin America, the European Union, Russia, the Middle East and China.

The United States does not import Brazilian beef due to a law that bans the importing of beef from countries lacking certification proving the absence of foot-and-mouth disease.

GET INVOLVED

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International

photo: Robert Walker, Geography Department, Michigan State University

Trees Are Dying Faster

In the western United States, the rate of tree deaths has doubled in the last thirty years.

Scientists at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) believe the culprit is global warming, according to a January 22 press release.

A new study led by USGS scientist Phil van Mantgem found that trees of all sizes and elevations have been affected.

Published today in Science, it is the first large-scale study of tree death rates in forests or temperate regions.

Adding more worry is the fact that increased tree deaths increases the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, speeding up global warming. It's a vicious cycle, indeed.

"The same way that in any group of people a small number will die each year, in any forest a small number of trees die each year," said van Mantgem. "But our long-term monitoring shows that tree mortality has been climbing, while the establishment of replacement trees has not."

Time to think about getting an artificial tree next Christmas.

GET INVOLVED

• Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees

photo: Gafoto

Eat Healthy and Save the World, Simultaneously

Mark Bittman is a New York Times food columnist known for his popular column "The Minimalist," in which he shows the over-scheduled and cash-strapped how to spend less time and money eating well by cooking at home smartly.

The Huffington Post said that he is "the most commonsensical of food writers, though it's clear that he loves to eat and that his palate has high standards."

In his new book, Food Matters, he argues that eating healthy also happens to be much better for the planet.

Salon.com called the book "an unusual blend of manifesto, self-help manual and cookbook designed to convince people that they can drastically improve their diets with relatively little discomfort." (They also called Bittman "the anti-foodie's foodie.")

In a radio interview with WNYC's Brian Lehrer, Bittman asserts that Americans get 80-90% of all their calories from animal products and highly-processed foods. The remaining 10-20% comes from plants.

And this, he argues, is a major problem not just for individual health, but for health of the Earth, pointing out that the livestock industry creates 18% of all greenhouse gases -- second only to our energy consumption.

The way humans currently consume food, Bittman says, "is counter to everything that's good for people's bodies [or] for the planet."

He also notes the one single "food" that provides the most calories to Americans: soda.

GET INFORMED

• Listen to Mark Bittman on The Brian Lehrer show (WNYC, January 23, 2008)
  

GET INVOLVED

• Buy Food Matters on Amazon.com
• Eat sustainably

RELATED POSTS

• Getting Smaller: Our Food (January 21, 2008)
• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Frozen, Canned or Fresh? (December 12, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Michael Pollan Should Be the Next Secretary of Agriculture (November 18, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• The Ones That Got Away: "Organic" Fish (November 9, 2008)
• California Passes Landmark Anti-Cruelty Act (November 7, 2008)
• If We Really Are What We Eat, Most of Us Are A Bit Disturbing (October 17, 2008)
• Goodbye, Fish and Chips (October 12, 2008)
• Over a Century Later, A Sustainable Crop Experiment Thrives (October 6, 2008)
• Californians to Vote on Landmark Anti-Cruelty Act (September 22, 2008)
• Twice As Nice: Organic Wine (August 31, 2008)
• Understanding A Powerful Crop Virus (August 22, 2008)
• Celebrities Call G8 Delays in Aid "A Disgrace" (July 9, 2008)
• Secret Report Says Biofuels Caused Food Crisis (July 8, 2008)
• The Shrimp Effect: Does Eating Shrimp in Canada Kill People in Myanmar? (May 8, 2008)
• Bee Colony Collapse Affecting US Food Supply (April 26, 2008)
• Biofuels Fuel Food Crisis (April 15, 2008)
• Banned Pesticides Killing Birds (April 10, 2008)

photo: sentochihirokotohoumi

Obama Halts Bush's Last-Minute Regulations

Honoring the first-day tradition of all American presidents since Ronald Reagan, President Obama put a halt to all of the last-minute regulations that the Bush administration attempted to put into place before the transition.

Any work by federal regulators that was unfinished by the time Bush ceded power to Obama, according to a Washington Post article, was put on hold so that the new administration could review each one.

According to a Scientific American blog post, two of Bush's eleventh hour moves include a rule that permits federal regulators to ignore the possible carbon dioxide emissions of new coal-fired plants when reviewing applications to construct them and the delisting of the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

One hundred "final rules" were ordered by Bush since Obama won the election in November.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition supporting Al Gore's request to Congress for a moratorium on coal-fired power plants
• Sign a Sierra Club petition opposing the US Fish and Wildlife Service delisting of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List
  

RELATED POSTS

• The Politics of Protecting Species (December 17, 2008)
• Bush's Last Deregulatory Gasp (November 11, 2008)
  
• Darker Days for Gray Wolves? (November 1, 2008)
• $700 Billion Bailout Bill Includes Tax Breaks for Dirty Fuel (October 5, 2008)
  
• First US Emissions Trading Market Opens (September 28, 2008)
  
• Good News for America's Wolves, Maybe (September 19, 2008)
• Conservationists Call Palin's Wolf Program "Brutal" (September 14, 2008)
• Alaska's Wolf Control Program Under Fire (August 14, 2008)
• Judge Overturns Bush's Decision to Allow Wolf Killings (July 21, 2008)
• Wolves Hunted After Protection Ends (April 21, 2008)

photo: jmtimages

Getting Smaller: Our Food

Apparently, we're making our food smaller.

According to a recent Scientific American article, the reproductive cycles of the plants and animals that are "harvested aggressively" from the wild and changing rapidly, and the species that we eat are getting smaller in size -- about 20 percent smaller than a few generations ago.

The findings are the result of a new study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the study, which was led by Chris Darimont, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, humans are different from non-human predators, which normally go after the young and the weak -- we "typically exploit high proportions of prey populations and target large, reproductive-aged adults."

Since big, old animals are being caught and eaten by us, they start reproducing at a younger age, mature more quickly and adults become smaller.

The smaller sizes change the predator-prey relationships, impacting entire ecosystems.

GET INFORMED

• "Hungry World Must Eat Less Meat" (BBC, August 14, 2004)

GET INVOLVED

• Eat sustainably
• Sign the Pew Environment Group petition urging the US National Marine Fisheries Service to stop overfishing

photo: Northern Miniatures

Pick up the Fish Phone

With all the unsustainable fishing that's going on and all the depleted fish stocks -- not to mention high levels of mercury -- it's hard for the average consumer to know which fish is good to buy these days, especially during those hectic moments at the supermarket.

But now, thanks to the Blue Ocean Institute, all you need is your cell phone.

Yellowfin tuna or albacore? Wild or farm-raised? No problem. Just text FISH and the variety you're wondering about to 30644 and you'll get an instant reply telling you if your choice is good for the planet -- and good for you.

If you've got internet access on your mobile phone, you can also dial up fishphone.org.

No cell phone? Go the old-fashioned route and print out the Environmental Defense Fund's pocket seafood selector and stick it in your wallet.

Happy fishing!

GET INFORMED

• "Sustainable fishing at your fingertips: The best fish to buy? Ask your cell phone" (Scientific American, January 16, 2008)

RELATED POSTS

• Overfishing: How Supermarkets Rate (December 28, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Big Fish, Little Fish (November 13, 2008)
• Ted Danson's Fight to Prevent A Bluefin Tuna Collapse (September 26, 2008)
• A Six-Step Plan to Save the Oceans from An Extinction Crisis (August 17, 2008)
• Marine Life Bounces Back After Fishing Ban (July 17, 2008)
• US Backs Proposal for Destructive Fishing (June 3, 2008)

photo: hitthatswitch

First Contact with Inner Earth: Workers Strike Magma

According to a recent National Geographic article, workers in Hawaii struck magma in the first known human contact with the hot stuff in its natural environment.

Bruce Marsh, a volcanologist from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland who will be studying the discovery said, "This is my Jurassic Park."

GET INVOLVED

• Support the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) in their campaign to prevent animal suffering and sustain local livelihoods near the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador's Sangay National Park, which has showered the local region with ash, contaminating water, crops and animal feed

photo: germeister

New Film Exposes Japan's Dolphin Slaughter

In Chinese philosophy, the term taiji means oneness and connotes infinite possibility. For the dolphins driven into a secluded cove by the small Japanese town of Taiji, it is the end of the line.

For six months every year, fishermen slaughter up to 23,000 dolphins in this fortified location with harpoons, an activity sanctioned by the government as an attempt to rid the ecosystem of what they believe are pests. The dolphins compete with humans for the same food source -- fish.

And now, a new film that New York magazine said was "sure to be one of the most talked-about documentaries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival," is aiming to expose the brutal killings to the public at large.

The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos, tells the story of Richard O'Barry, a dolphin activist who has been fighting the Taiji slaughter.

"Even the Japanese don’t know about this," O'Barry said in an interview with New York. "I went onto the street in Tokyo, and I showed the footage to a hundred people walking down the sidewalk, and none of them knew this was happening. That’s the only hope, to expose this to the world. It won’t be easy."

GET INVOLVED

• Watch the trailer for The Cove and support the Save the Dolphins campaign

RELATED POSTS

• Massive Dolphin Slaughter in Japan (June 23, 2008)

photo: alde

Palin Attacks Endangered Whales

Governor Sarah Palin's reputation for neglecting endangered wildlife in support of the oil industry has been burnished with this week's announcement that Alaska will sue the federal government for recognizing the beluga whales in Cook Inlet as endangered species.

After intense campaigns mounted by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service decided in October to list the whales for protection under the Endangered Species Act, a move that has hampered oil and gas development in the region.

This is not the first time that Gov. Palin has worked to undo endangered species protections -- along with the American Petroleum Institute and other oil industry groups, she filed suit in August in an attempt to reverse the protections given to the polar bear.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Care2 petition urging Gov. Palin to drop the court case challenging the federal decision to protect Cook Inlet beluga whales under the Endangered Species Act
  

RELATED POSTS

• Palin's Wolf Slaughter Reaches Record Numbers (December 31, 2008)
• Palin Rebuffed As Unique Alaskan Whales Score Major Victory (October 18, 2008)
• Conservationists Call Palin's Wolf Program "Brutal" (September 14, 2008)
• Alaska's Wolf Control Program Under Fire (August 14, 2008)

photo: NOAA Fisheries, NMML

Mission: Pole-to-Pole

HIAPER is one of America's most advanced research aircraft. And it's current mission is a historic one.

The HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) mission was launched last week. It's goal is to find out where all that global-warming carbon dioxide going.

According to a National Science Foundation press release, the aircraft is traveling from Boulder, Colorado up to Anchorage, Alaska, and down south to New Zealand, in order to "cover more than 24,000 miles as an international team of scientists makes a series of five flights over the next three years sampling the atmosphere in some of the most inaccessible regions of the world."

GET INFORMED

• View videos of Britt Stephens of NCAR and Steven Wofsy of Harvard University describing the HIAPER mission

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an EarthJustice petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations that limit global warming pollution
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: NCAR/National Science Foundation

Lilypad: Future Ecopolis for Global Warming Refugees

Of the various effects of man-caused global warming, rising water levels will greatly impact the livelihoods of millions, especially considering that a tenth of the world's population lives within six miles from the coast.

Over the past century, the sea level has been rising at an average of about 2mm per year, and the rate is increasing.

But melting ice can have a huge effect: at the end of the last ice age, the sea level rose 120 meters from polar ice cap melt.

Vincent Callebaut has at least one solution -- floating cities.

According to a recent article in Le Monde by Grégoire Allix (translated into English on Truthout.org), the Franco-Belgian architect has dubbed his idea Lilypad, "amphibious city-atolls of 50,000 inhabitants, ecological and self-sufficient, afloat on the oceans wherever the winds and the currents take them...futurist Noah's Ark[s] for the climate refugees to come." (Two Lilypads are shown here in virtual form off the coast of Monaco.)

Other architectural ideas to house future climate refugees include the Underground Desert Living Unit and Polar Cities.

While it's not necessarily time to pack your bags just yet, it's never too early to devise a Plan B.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign an EarthJustice petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations that limit global warming pollution
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
  

RELATED POSTS

• Pack Your Bags, We're Moving to New Zealand (October, 26, 2008)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008) Huge Antarctica Ice Shelf Crumbles (April 1, 2008)
• Record Glacier Melt from Climate Change (March 16, 2008)

photo: Vincent Callebaut

Farewell to the Polar Bears

They are iconic, majestic and awe-inspiring. And they are slipping away.

According to a press release issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Monday, "Eight of the 13 Canadian polar bear sub-populations are either depleted or showing significant signs of stress, and future reduction of sea-ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of two-thirds of the world's polar bears within 50 years."

In the release, Dr. Peter Ewins, the Director of Species Conservation at WWF Canada said, "The facts are very clear, both from scientific research and from local knowledge, that climate change is occurring rapidly in the Arctic and is causing major problems for wildlife, and for northern peoples."

In May 2008, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird said, "The bottom line is a declining polar bear population is not an option for Canada."

At that time, the polar bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in the United States.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the Center for Biological Diversity petition urging President-elect Barack Obama to defend polar bear habitat by fully enforcing existing environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act to curb greenhouse gas emissions

RELATED POSTS

• Creating Jobs, Saving Wildlife, Protecting Public Land (January 8, 2008)
• Crisis in the Bering Sea (December 3, 2008)
• Using Art to Tell the Sad Tale of Polar Bears (September 29, 2008)
• Polar Bears Swimming Miles from Coast Cause Concern (August 23, 2008)
• North Pole May Be Ice-Free in Five Years (August 12, 2008)
• Lawsuit Filed to Protect Wildlife from Oil Drilling (July 12, 2008)

photo: Petrusbarbygere, US Fish & Wildlife

Samboja Lestari

Scientists didn't think it was possible. But on the third largest island in the world -- Borneo -- 51 year-old microbiologist and orangutan advocate Wille Smits has proven them wrong.

He has created a lush tropical rainforest out of land that was once a desert.

His goal was to create an orangutan habitat from scratch in East Kalimantan, the second largest province in Indonesia.

And with the help of 600 families of the local Dayak tribe whose livelihood was economically tied to the project, he succeeded.

Smits named it Samboja Lestari, “Everlasting Forest.”

Scientific American called it "a gutsy experiment that has drawn criticism from both scientists and conservationists."

GET INVOLVED

• Protect an acre of rainforest through Conservation International
• Adopt an orangutan from Borneo Orangutan Survival
  

RELATED POSTS

• Governors Sign International Climate Pact (November 23, 2008)
• The Other Big Oil (November 12, 2008)
• Saving Sumatran Forests, Keepers of Carbon (October 11, 2008)
• Global Land Grab May Decimate Forests (July 15, 2008)
• UN Urges Southeast Asia to Stop Deforestation (June 26, 2008)
• Papua New Guinea's Forests Decimated Within 13 Years (June 20, 2008)
• Prince Charles Urges Halt to Rainforest Logging (May 20, 2008)
• EDITORIAL: Happy Markets, Happy Forests (April 27, 2008)
• Rainforest Activists Infiltrate Industry Conference (March 21, 2008)
• Bushfire Destroys Australian Rainforest (March 18, 2008)

photo: S.L. Sagan

One Man's Trash is All Our Trash

Ever wonder how many brown paper bags are used in the United States every hour? (1.14 million.) Or how many plastic bottles are discarded every five minutes? (2 million.)

These and other rather troubling facts and figures about our garbage and pollution accompany two new slide shows posted on the Scientific American Web site, The Truth about Trash and Hidden Truths of Humanity's Impact on the Planet.

GET INVOLVED

• Find out how to reduce your plastic and paper bag consumption
• Stop using plastic water bottles by switching to resuable eco-friendly water bottles made by Sigg
  

RELATED POSTS

• China to Ban Plastic Bags (May 24, 2008)
• Hundreds of Ducks Dead After Landing in Toxic Waste (May 11, 2008)
• Ed Norton Says, "Bag the Bag" (May 4, 2008)
• Massive Pile of Garbage Grows in Pacific (April 10, 2008)
• Death by Plastic (March 28, 2008)

photo: quantum bunny

Under Attack: Bush's Plan to Sell Utah Wilderness

Actor Robert Redford, a trustee of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), has been active in fighting the Bush administration's attempt to auction off parcels of pristine land in Utah's Redrock Wilderness.

The region encompasses five national parks in the southern and eastern parts of the state and contains some of the most dramatic rock formations on Earth, including the world's largest concentration of sandstone arches.

"Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan," writes Redford in a December 23 article posted on OneEarth and the Huffington Post. "Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River? The thought makes one wince."

He notes that the NRDC and a coalition of environmental groups came to an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that may save 100,000 acres of endangered land. Though the auction went through, the deal temporarily prevents the BLM from issuing leases on 80 contested parcels of Utah wilderness until January 19, giving federal courts time to hear the case.

In a January 10 article on Truthout.org, Michael Winship reported on Tim DeChristopher, an environmental activist who was able to infiltrate the BLM auction for oil and gas exploration leases. DeChristopher, a 27 year-old college student, actually bid for 13 lease parcels totalling over 22,000 acres for approximately $1.7 million before he was escorted out by BLM security.

GET INVOLVED

• Help the NRDC stop the giveaway of America's wilderness

RELATED POSTS

• Redford to Bush: Sale of Utah's Redrock Wilderness "Disastrous" (December 19, 2008)

photo of the Sentinel at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah: James Marvin Phelps

Argentina Creates Marine Park to Protect Penguins

Some 500,000 Magellanic penguins in Argentina can breathe a little easier now that commercial fishing and oil exploration are banned where they like to live.

Along with several rare species of seabird and the region’s single population of South American fur seals, the penguins are now officially protected.

According to a recent article in ScienceDaily, the formation of a new coastal marine park -- signed into law by the Argentinian government and located in Golfo San Jorge in Chubut Province about 1,000 miles south of Buenos Aires -- protects not only onshore breeding grounds but also parts of the ocean that are critical for feeding.

"The park protects one of the most productive and extraordinary marine ecosystems on the planet," said Dr Guillermo Harris, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Argentina Program. "The creation of this park comes in the nick of time for many species that are threatened by the region’s fishing and energy industries."

Other species that will be protected include the endangered Olrog’s gull, the white-headed steamer duck, and almost a third of the nation's imperial and rock cormorants.

The park is the result of a joint effort by the National Parks Service of Argentina, the government of Chubut, the Wildlife Conservation Society and its local partner Fundación Patagonia Natural with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility.

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Wildlife Conservation Society letter to your U.S. Senators supporting Senate Resolution 598 introduced by Senators Biden and Lugar which identifies targets, approaches, and strategies to address critical global conservation priorities
• Adopt a penguin from Defenders of Wildlife for $20

SKY ALERT

• If skies are clear tonight, don't miss the biggest full moon of the year

photo: David, Wikimedia Commons

L.A. Times Poll: Should Billy the Elephant Remain at the L.A. Zoo?

The Los Angeles Times is conducting a poll asking readers if Billy the elephant should remain at the Los Angeles Zoo. He has been in captivity for 20 years.

Animal rights organization In Defense of Animals (IDA) has been working to get Billy moved to an elephant sanctuary.

Conservationist and animal husbandry expert Daphne Sheldrick, chairperson of David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, has spent 50 years working with elephants, and in a recent editorial in the L.A. Times, she writes, "It has been scientifically established that elephants are 'human' in terms of emotion."

Along with humans, apes and dolphins, elephants have a very large and complicated neocortex, something which scientists say gives them a complex intelligence.

"The worst punishment we inflict on human wrongdoers is solitary confinement and life imprisonment," Sheldrick says. "Is it right to inflict this punishment on an innocent animal that mirrors humans in terms of emotion, longevity and age progression -- and moreover has a memory that far surpasses our own?"

After all, Aristotle once said that elephants were "the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind."

GET INVOLVED

• Vote "NO" in the L.A. Times poll for Billy
• Support IDA's campaign to free Billy

RELATED POSTS

• Saving Billy (December 29, 2008)

photo: Glenn Koenig/Los Angeles Times

Creating Jobs, Saving Wildlife, Protecting Public Land

With the U.S. jobless rate recently hitting a 14-year high, President-elect Obama is looking to create three million jobs.

Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit conservation group, has a good idea.

In a recent email, Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen writes, "America could put nearly 60,000 people to work within 90-180 days by funding important conservation projects on public lands -- projects like restoring wetlands, reconnecting habitat across highways, removing invasive species, rehabilitating native forests and prairies, and making facilities and buildings on public lands more energy efficient."

Obama's "New Energy for America" plan calls for a $150 billion private-sector investment to create five million green jobs, saving more oil than is currently imported from Venezuela and the Middle East within ten years and the implementation of a cap-and-trade program.

In addition, Obama has outlined several avenues for job creation, such as a manufacturing investment in Michigan, an energy-focused youth jobs program and national infrastructure financing. But he hasn't touched on projects that help conservation efforts that can create jobs and protect public lands as well as imperiled wildlife like gray wolves, polar bears and Florida manatees (pictured).

"Projects like these," Schlickeisen says, "would have tangible benefits for imperiled wildlife, could keep local construction, electrical, landscape and other companies working throughout 2009 and would provide the next generation of workers with the skills they need to lead a green revolution in our economy."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a Defenders of Wildlife petition urging President-elect Obama and your U.S. representative and senators to help create jobs that will protect our wildlife and our environment

RELATED POSTS

• EDITORIAL: Red States, Blue States, Green States (November 5, 2008)
• The Rise of the Green-Collar Worker (October 31, 2008)

photo: Franie Frou Frou

President Bush: The Biggest Ocean Protector Ever

For an administration that has been marred by rolling back environmental protections in favor of big business, it may come as a surprise to know that President George W. Bush is now officially the biggest protector of the world's oceans in history.

Actually, he has protected more area on the planet than any other person.

Invoking the hundred-year-old Antiquities Act, Mr Bush made conservationists around the globe smile by protecting 195,000 square miles of ocean in the Western Pacific outside of Hawaii, a total area 40,000 square miles larger than California that includes the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument (which includes Wake Island, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll) and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa.

The protected area -- in which commercial fishing, oil and gas exploration, tourism development and the destruction or extraction of any of the area's natural resources are banned -- also includes the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world's oceans and the deepest point on the surface of the Earth's crust, located near Guam.

This comes in addition to the nearby Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which Mr Bush established as a protected area in 2006.

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized his boss's landmark decision.

GET INVOLVED

• Donate to support Conservation International campaigns to protect biodiversity hotspots around the globe
• Sign a petition to the United Nations to show your support of biodiversity

RELATED POSTS

• Bush Proposes World's Largest Marine Reserve (September 2, 2008)

photo: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Could A Prehistoric Comet Collision Have Caused Climate Change?

Almost 13,000 years ago, the planet went through an abrupt cooldown, eradicating about 35 species of mammals in the process, including woolly mammoths and prehistoric North Americans known for their groundbreaking Clovis culture.

Overhunting and sudden climate change have been among the various theories explaining the extinctions.

But now, according to a recent report in Scientific American, tiny diamonds called nanodiamonds that have been found across six North American sites suggest that a massive comet explosion may have been the culprit, setting off a 1,300-year cooling period across the northern latitudes known as the "Big Freeze" or Younger Dryas, named for an alpine flower that managed to survive during the icy period.

GET INVOLVED

• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

photo: Dr. Neil Fox, University of Bristol

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain (Not)

While Queen Isabella I of Spain was funding Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World, churches were keeping detailed records of prayers that followed the climactic conditions at home.

So when they wanted to know what the weather of their country was like during the Renaissance, Fernando Domínguez-Castro, Juan I. Santisteban, Mariano Barriendos and Rosa Mediavilla, according to a recent report in ScienceDaily, paid a visit to that great exemplar of Spanish Gothic style -- the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo, erected in white stone in 1226 during the reign of Ferdinand III.

The researchers were interested in the cathedral's records of its rogativas -- ceremonies with origins in ancient Roman agricultural rites, such as Ambarvalia, an agricultural fertility rite held at the end of May in honour of Ceres, the goddess of growing plants and motherly love (still worshipped today, in Religio Romana Neopaganism).

The rogativa documents revealed not only the strict church protocols and daily life of the time, but also the historical procession of ceremonies -- such as prayers for rain.

The scientists found that after the 16th century, droughts in Spain were increasingly longer and more frequent, echoing a New York Times article by Elisabeth Rosenthal, who observed that "swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming."

One of the causes of the global food crisis is the shortage of water in Africa, Australia and southern Spain. Rosenthal finds that, at least when it comes to Spain, "water is the new battleground."

But the problem isn't limited to Spain.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, "almost half the world population (47%) will be living under severe water stress by 2030 if no new policies are introduced."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights giving all people the right to clean and accessible water
• Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe

RELATED POSTS

• Ancient Water Source Key to Australia's Future (December 27, 2008)
• Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir (October 28, 2008)
• Bad News for Kangaroos: Down Under's Getting Hotter (October 19, 2008)
• Got Water? Visions of Planet Earth in 2030 (October 14, 2008)
• Future of Water Looking Murky (September 4, 2008)
• Water Experts Raise Warning Flag (July 14, 2008)
• Satellite Images Reveal Drastic Changes in Africa (June 16, 2008)

photo: "The Birth of the Virgin," fresco by Juan de Borgoña, Cathedral of Toledo, c. 1495