Friday, July 30, 2010

Water Week: The Bushmen of Botswana

While tourists enjoy a swimming pool and bar, Botswana's Bushmen are banned from drilling wells for water on their own ancestral land

Surrounded by South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia, Botswana is a landlocked nation a little smaller than Texas. Covered up to 70% by the Kalahari Desert, it is one the driest places on Earth.

Good governance and fiscal management has led Botswana from being one of the continent's poorest countries (when it gained independence from Great Britain in 1966) to one of the world's fastest growing economies (with an average annual growth rate around 9 percent).

But you would be forgiven for not believing this if you visited the Bushmen of the Kalahari, who are suffering from widespread alcoholism and depression following their forced removal from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, which was created to protect the traditional territory of the 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsila Bushmen (as well as the neighboring Bakgalagadi) -- and the ecosystem they depend on to survive.

When diamonds were discovered here in the 1980s, the Bushmen were forced out over three removals that took place in 1997, 2002 and 2005. Their homes, schools and medical clinics were dismantled. Their water supply was destroyed. They were trucked away to resettlement camps, where they have been exposed to HIV/AIDS, something entirely new to them.

In 2006, the High Court ruled that the evictions were illegal and unconstitutional, and hundreds of Bushmen have since returned to their ancestral lands. However, despite the ruling, the Botswana government banned the Bushmen from re-commissioning the pre-existing water borehole at Mothomelo.

James Anaya, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples, said that the Bushmen are facing "harsh and dangerous conditions due to a lack of access to water."

"The decision condemns them to having to walk up to 380 km to fetch water in one of the driest places on earth," according to a recent email from Survival International, the only international organization supporting tribal peoples worldwide.

"Tourists to the reserve staying at Wilderness Safaris’ new lodge, however, will enjoy use of a swimming pool and bar, while Gem Diamonds’ planned mine in the reserve can use all the water it needs -- on condition none is given to the Bushmen."

"If we don’t have water," said Bushman spokesman Jumanda Gakelebone, "how are we expected to live?"

GET INVOLVED
  • Write a letter to the president of Botswana on behalf of the Bushmen
  • Support Survival International efforts to help the Bushmen
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image: bushmen in Deception Valley, Botswana, demonstrating how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together (credit: Ian Sewell)
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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Water Week: Fracking Up the Delaware

It is a symbol of the American Revolution. Now the Delaware is the nation's most endangered river

Around 17 million people get their water from the Upper Delaware River, which snakes through the boundaries between New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

But it is being threatened by energy companies who believe that the Marcellus Shale -- 95,000 square miles of dense, 400-million-year-old marine sedimentary rock that lies beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio -- contains enough natural gas to power the entire East coast region for the next 50 years.

The method used to extract all this gas is called hydraulic fracturing (or simply, "fracking"), which creates fractures in the rock to get to the sweet stuff. In 2005, Congress deemed that it was not necessary for the government to regulate this process, which environmentalists say is extremely dangerous, citing potential air quality degradation, groundwater contamination, unintended gas migration and even seismic events.

On June 3, a well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, experienced a blowout, sending 35,000 gallons of fracking fluids into the air and the surrounding forested landscape. Some of the ingredients in this fluid can be toxic and include gels, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and in some cases, radioactive material. These fluids can also enter the groundwater, turning it into untreatable toxic wastewater.

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) secretary John Hanger declared the June 3 blowout a "serious incident," saying, "The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property."

In their 2010 report on America's endangered rivers, the non-profit river conservation group American Rivers declared that the Upper Delaware River was the nation's most endangered, citing the threat from natural gas extraction.

"Until a thorough study of these critical impacts is completed, the Delaware River Basin Commission must not issue permits that will allow gas drilling in this watershed," the group urges on their website.

"In addition, Congress must pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 to help protect all rivers within the Marcellus Shale region."

The EPA recently announced a $1.9 million study to re-examine hydraulic fracturing. But the oil and gas industry has been vigorously defending the safety of the process. Studies have "consistently shown that the risks are managed, it's safe, it's a technology that's essential ... it's also a technology that's well-regulated," said Lee Fuller, director of the industry coalition Energy In Depth, in an AP story.

But since the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the drilling companies have lost quite a bit of credibility with the public. "People no longer trust the oil and gas industry to say, 'Trust us, we're not cutting corners,'" said Cathy Carlson, a policy adviser for Earthworks, which supports federal regulation and a moratorium on fracking in the Marcellus Shale, in the AP article.

On the evening of Christmas Day in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington famously led his troops across the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey in a planned surprise attack against the Hessian forces in Trenton.

As regulators and environmentalists consider the future of both fracking and the Delaware River, they would do well to note the password to get past the sentry that Washington's troops set up along the New Jersey landing line: "Victory or Death."

And as the members of Congress consider the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act -- in the face of intense pressure from the energy industry lobbying groups -- they should remember something else Washington said: "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

GET INVOLVED
  • Sign an American Rivers letter urging Congress to pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 to help protect all rivers within the Marcellus Shale region
  • Sign an American Rivers letter urging the U.S. House of Representatives to vote YES on H.R. 3534, the CLEAR Act, which better regulates the oil and gas industry and will not only protect the oceans from future spills, but will protect rivers, streams, land and the communities that depend on them
  • Download the American Rivers 2010 Most Endangered Rivers report (PDF)
  • Become an Earthworks e-advocate
  • Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights giving all people the right to clean and accessible water
  • Sign the Food & Water Watch "Take Back the Tap" pledge to choose tap over bottled water whenever possible, fill a reusable bottle with tap water and support policies that promote clean, affordable tap water for all
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image: "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze, 1851, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Water Week: Crossing the River Jordan

Symbolically, it flows powerfully through Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But today, the Lower Jordan River is a mess

According to the Canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River.

Elijah crossed it and rode a chariot of fire into Heaven. Elisha used the river's water to cure lepers. Joshua crossed it into Canaan. It was a prominent part of the Prophet Muhammad's nighttime journey from Mecca to al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Qur’an says that God blessed the land of the Jordan River Valley "for all beings."

"The Lower Jordan River is arguably the most famous river in the world, of international significance to more than half of humanity due to its rich natural and cultural heritage and its symbolic value and importance to the three monotheistic religions," Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) said in a statement from Tel Aviv.

In a May 2010 trilateral FoEME report entitled "Towards a Living Jordan River: An Environmental Flows Report on the Rehabilitation of the Lower Jordan River," researchers from Israel's Ruppin Academic Center, Palestine's Al Quds University and Jordan's University of Science and Technology found that:

-- The Lower Jordan River (LJR) today is a highly degraded system due to severe flow reduction and water quality decline.

-- Over 98% of the historic flow of the LJR is diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan for domestic and agricultural uses and these countries are discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it.

-- The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond waters, agricultural run-off, and saline water diverted from the LJR from salt springs around the Sea of Galilee.

-- The river has lost over 50% of its biodiversity primarily due to a total loss of fast flow habitats and floods and the high salinity of the water.

-- Long stretches of the LJR are expected to be completely dry unless urgent action is taken by the parties to return fresh water to the river.

The water of the LJR poses a health risk to the tourists and pilgrims bathing at the river's holy baptism site, FoEME says. The group has urged Israel to close the site to the public until the water quality is improved. Approximately 100,000 tourists visit every year.

FoEME recommends that Israel undertake an experimental flood of the LJR developed by Yale University, citing that "floods are essential to healthy river ecology." They also recommend the development of a master plan for the LJR, the establishment of an international commission to manage the basin and that Palestine receive a fair share of the river's water resources "as part of the Middle East peace negotiations."

The Gospel of Mark notes that the people of Judea and Jerusalem were all baptized by John the Baptist "in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." The governments of Israel, Syria and Jordan should remember this Biblical story, confess the sins they have committed on this critical water source, make plans to rehabilitate it and ensure that all the people who need it -- including those in Palestine -- can access it.

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
  • Download a PDF of the FoEME report "Towards a Living Jordan River: An Environmental Flows Report on the Rehabilitation of the Lower Jordan River"
  • Sign the Food & Water Watch "Take Back the Tap" pledge to choose tap over bottled water whenever possible, fill a reusable bottle with tap water and support policies that promote clean, affordable tap water for all
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image: Christophe Unterberger, "Crossing the Jordan River," 1780s (Hermitage Museum)
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Water Week: The Human Right to Water and Sanitation

Access to clean water is not a universal human right. Tomorrow, the United Nations will hold a historic summit to address this issue

Sixty years ago, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But it didn't include the right to the most important fluid of life -- water. Today, 1.1 billion people around the globe lack access to affordable, clean water. Over 2.4 billion people lack sanitation.

Every eight seconds, a child dies of a water-borne disease, according to Maude Barlow, a global water advocate and a founder of the Canada-based Blue Planet Project, in a recent article she wrote in the Guardian. According to Change.org, "Contaminated water has killed more people since World War II than all other combined forms of war and violence."

Now, the UN General Assembly is finally going to discuss this extremely important issue, and for the first time ever, will consider adopting the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. The draft resolution -- led by Bolivia and co-sponsored by 23 other countries -- "declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life."

"Support for the human right to water has been steadily growing in recent years but several wealthy countries -- notably the UK, US, Canada and Australia -- have emerged as negative forces, finding excuses not to support the resolution in its current form," writes Barlow.

"The new Conservative government of David Cameron is already on record that it will oppose this resolution unless it is amended to remove sanitation and only refer to "access" to clean water, not the human right to water itself. Canada hides behind the false claim that such a resolution might force it to share its water with the US; Australia has gone the route of water markets and so is unlikely to sign onto a commitment that would favour public ownership of water; and it disappointedly appears that the Obama administration is not charting a new course for his country when it comes to human rights obligations at the UN."

Safe drinking water access, according to the World Health Organization, means an average of 20 liters of water per person per day within one kilometer walking distance of one's home. They define basic sanitation refers as a sanitary means of human waste disposal.

According to the Netherlands-based non-governmental human rights organization Centre of Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), "Many communities living in slums and low-income neighbourhoods in urban and rural areas are charged unaffordable prices for drinking water, spend several hours daily collecting water or have no alternative but to use contaminated water from rivers or unprotected wells."

In her seminal 1962 book Silent Spring, environmentalist and biologist Rachel Louise Carson wrote, "In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference."

Hopefully, the UN General Assembly will take a major step in redressing this indifference and pass a strong resolution.

GET INVOLVED
  • Download a PDF of the draft resolution to the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
  • Tell your government to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
  • Send a Blue Planet Project letter to your United Nations representative urging them to support the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
  • Sign a Food & Water Watch letter urging U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice to support supports the Human Right to Water and Sanitation
  • Sign the petition to adopt Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights giving all people the right to clean and accessible water
  • Sign the Food & Water Watch "Take Back the Tap" pledge to choose tap over bottled water whenever possible, fill a reusable bottle with tap water and support policies that promote clean, affordable tap water for all
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image: Beauty of Africa
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Monday, July 26, 2010

Water Week: Pakistan vs. India

Throwing water (or the lack thereof) on the Indo-Pakistani conflict

On September 19, 1960, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani president Muhammad Ayub Khan signed the Indus Waters Treaty, a water-sharing agreement brokered by the World Bank that was instigated by Pakistani fears that their water supply, particularly in times of war, could be cut off by India, the location of the Indus River basin.

In May, Pakistan filed a case with the international arbitration court trying to stop the hyrdoelectric dam that India is building in Kashmir, the locus of many years of armed conflict between the two nations, now the center of a growing dispute about control of the water of the Indus basin -- a quarrel that threatens to disrupt peace talks between the nations. And though the 1960 water treaty survived the three major conflicts of the Indo-Pakistani Wars, today it is on perilous ground.

"The treaty worked well in the past, mostly because the Indians weren’t building anything,” said Harvard University environmental scientist and Southeast Asia water expert John Briscoe, in the New York Times. "This is a completely different ballgame. Now there’s a whole battery of these hydroprojects."

The ultimate source of the Indus River is the Tibetan Plateau. Four times the size of France, the plateau contains the world's third largest store of ice. According to an AFP story, former head of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Qin Dahe gave a warning about the plateau to Tibet Daily, saying that "temperatures are rising four times faster than elsewhere in China, and the Tibetan glaciers are retreating at a higher speed than in any other part of the world."

"In the long run, the glaciers are vital lifelines for Asian rivers, including the Indus and the Ganges," Qin said. "Once they vanish, water supplies in those regions will be in peril."

"The Indus looks nothing like the mighty river from history books," writes Graeme Smith in the Globe and Mail.

"Alexander the Great once sailed galleys along these waters; centuries later, the British used steamboats. Now, the decaying remnants of boats are stranded high on the sandy banks, dozens of metres above the brown trickle that was once a legendary river. Only small fishing skiffs remain on the water, and most sit empty."

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
  • Sign the Food & Water Watch "Take Back the Tap" pledge to choose tap over bottled water whenever possible, fill a reusable bottle with tap water and support policies that promote clean, affordable tap water for all
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image: Satellite image of the Indus River basin. Red dots indicate fires. International boundaries are superimposed (Pakistan is in the middle, flanked by Afghanistan to the west and India to the east); the boundary through Jammu and Kashmir reflects the Line of Control (LOC). (credit: NASA)
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Friday, July 23, 2010

Little Dumbbell Nebula

The fading light of a dying star 2,500 light-years away

Discovered in 1780 by French astronomer Pierre Méchain, the "Little Dumbbell Nebula" is also known as Messier 76, NGC 650/651, the Barbell Nebula or the Cork Nebula.

Located in the constellation Perseus, it is a planetary nebula -- a massive and expanding glowing veil of ionized gas that has been cast off by a dying star.

Planetary nebulas (so called because they were incorrectly thought to be planets in the 18th century) are relatively short-lived, existing for only tens of thousands of years, while the lifetime of a star is billions of years.

The French astronomer Charles Messier described the Little Dumbbell Nebula, which is about 1 light-year in diameter, as the "nebula at the right foot of Andromeda" in his 18th century Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters.

"Gas expanding more rapidly away from the donut hole produces the fainter loops of far flung material," writes astronomer Ken Crawford of the Rancho del Sol Observatory in NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day series.

"The fainter material is emphasized in this composite image, highlighted by showing emission from hydrogen atoms in orange and oxygen atoms in complementary blue hues. The nebula's dying star can be picked out in the sharp false-color image as the blue-tinted star near the center of the box-like shape."

GET INVOLVED
  • See what's in the sky tonight
  • Join the Great World Wide Star Count
  • Visit NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Web site
  • Download SETI@Home to help in the search for extraterrestrial life
  • Sign a petition to add the option for US taxpayers to contribute to NASA on the IRS 1040 tax form
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image: Ken Crawford, Rancho Del Sol Observatory
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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Too Many People

Does population matter? The Royal Society plans to answer this question

In the early 1970's the world human population was around 3.7 billion. We are on target to almost double that by 2012. (The current human population is 6.8 billion.)

"We’re really stressing the Earth’s natural resources due to population explosion," says Capt. Philip G. Renaud, the executive director of the Living Oceans Foundation, in an exclusive 13.7 Billion Years interview. "This is one of the most difficult issues we humans must come to grips with...If population continues to expand unchecked, we'll be facing food and water shortages and we'll quickly deplete our world’s natural resources."

"Coastal regions are where people naturally populate because of shipping commerce, food from the sea and natural beauty," says Renaud. And these areas are common sites of overpopulation. Once of these regions, the Chinese coastal province of Guangdong, has almost the same number of people as Mexico, but crammed into less than a tenth of the space. This intense population density has put an incredible strain on Guangdong's ecosystem: Fertile land is turning into dry desert. For many places like this on Earth, the devastation may be irreversible.

Now, the U.K.'s Royal Society is planning to study the pressing issue of population.

"We will be examining the extent to which population is a significant factor in the momentous international challenge of securing global sustainable development, considering not just the scientific elements, but encompassing the wider issues including culture, gender, economics and law," said Professor John Sulston, the Chair of the Royal Society working group that will undertake the study, in a recent press release.

"The Royal Society has brought together a working group of immense expertise, but also markedly different interests, to ensure that the end report will be comprehensive and cross-disciplinary and bring understanding of population issues to the cutting edge."

At last year's Sustainable Development UK 09 conference, the UK government chief scientist John Beddington said that as the global population reaches 8.3 billion in 2030, the demand for food and energy will jump 50 percent and the demand for fresh water by 30 percent.

This unchecked human population growth has not only put pressure on the limited resources that the planet has to offer, but has also increased the amount of global-warming gases that are released into the atmosphere. Human expansion has also made many plants and animals endangered or extinct, and has significantly reduced global biodiversity, which is critical in maintaining healthy ecosystems.

Calling it a "perfect storm," Prof. Beddington said, "There's not going to be a complete collapse, but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems."

GET INVOLVED
  • Monitor the growing devastation with Peter Russell's World Clock
  • Analyze and reduce your impact on the environment with the National Grid Floe
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image: world human population (est.) 10,000 BC–2000 AD (credit: El T)
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

God Saves the Queen, Men Kill the Bears

The famous hats on the UK's Queen's Guards are made of bear fur from Canada

Though 93% of Britons would never wear real fur according to a TNS poll, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) uses taxpayer money to purchase fur obtained by killing bears in Canada -- to turn them into ceremonial caps for the Queen's Guards.

In the past five years, the MoD has spent more than £321,000 (USD $488,000) on North American bear skins.

To get this fur, Canadian hunters employ a cruel technique known as "bear baiting" to lure bears with bait to an arranged killing spot. The bears -- many of them mothers looking for food for their young -- are shot while eating the bait that has been laid out. Often they are shot several times before they die. Many bears escape wounded, only to die a slow and agonizing death from blood loss.

If she is a mother bear, her babies will most certainly die of starvation and exposure. Tens of thousands of North American black bears are killed through this inhumane "bait-and-shoot" method.

These intelligent, caring and sensitive animals shouldn't be killed for any reason. To make hats for the military in a country whose population overwhelming is against wearing fur? That is plainly illogical.

While God is saving the Queen, her minister of defense should at least save the bears.

GET INVOLVED
  • Sign a PETA letter urging Peter Luff MP, Minister for Defence Equipment & Support, to stop using bear pelts to make headpieces for the five guard’s regiments and to have the hats fashioned from faux fur instead
  • Watch a PETA video about bear baiting
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image: Scots Guards at Windsor Castle (credit: Ibagli)
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Monday, July 19, 2010

Pamela Anderson Is an Animal

The famous vegetarian goes nearly naked to help shed our collective cognitive dissonance

According the United Nations Population Fund, the industrialized world diet includes an average of 173 pounds of meat per person every year. In terms of the environment, that is most certainly the costliest part of one's diet.

"Grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth's terrestrial surface, while feed crop production requires about a third of all arable land," according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO).

"Expansion of grazing land for livestock is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America: some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the reminder. About 70 percent of all grazing land in dry areas is considered degraded, mostly because of overgrazing, compaction and erosion attributable to livestock activity."

The FAO also estimates that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport. It accounts for nine percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, most of it due to expansion of pastures and arable land for feed crops. It generates even bigger shares of emissions of other gases with greater potential to warm the atmosphere: as much as 37 percent of anthropogenic methane, mostly from enteric fermentation by ruminants, and 65 percent of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, mostly from manure."

In the United States, 97% of all meat comes from filthy, overcrowded factory farms, where animals are fed unnatural diets (a lot of corn, thanks to America's out-of-control corn subsidies), loads of antibiotics and are generally treated inhumanely. Every year, 10 billion animals in the United States live this short and torturous life.

Now, in a provocative new ad campaign for PETA, actress and animal activist Pamela Anderson is showing some butcher-marked skin to remind us that humans and the animals we eat are made of the same parts.

"Just like humans, animals are made of flesh, blood, and bone and have organs and senses," notes a PETA statement. "Animals also have emotions and unique personalities, feel pain, and create families and relationships with other animals, if given the chance."

It seems so simplistic and obvious. But it is also something that is often forgotten in the societal mind game that changes words to help with the daily denial. "Cow" becomes "beef," "pig" becomes "pork," and "calf" becomes "veal." It's a surprisingly effective word-switching coping mechanism that avoids that uncomfortable feeling of cognitive dissonance. How many diners would order a dish called "baby cow scallopini?"

A new joint study by the University of Kent in England and the University of Melbourne in Australia notes that many people "enjoy eating meat but disapprove of harming animals." It is a mental quandary. So how do meat-eaters deal with it?

According to the researchers, "One resolution to this conflict is to withdraw moral concern from animals and deny their capacity to suffer." There are two other, more logical, resolutions: Stop eating meat or start approving the harming and killing of animals.

For Pamela Anderson, the naked truth may hurt, but making this surprisingly difficult realization will help stop the hurt for the billions of animals forced to be part of the environmentally harmful and morally questionable cycle of denial that marks man's desire for meat.

GET INVOLVED
  • Join Pamela Anderson and sign her pledge to explore vegetarianism for 30 days
  • Learn more about transitioning to an animal-friendly and earth-friendly vegan diet
  • Read a list of famous vegetarians
  • Download a free vegetarian starter kit from FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement)
  • See the 4-year-old McDonald's cheeseburger and fries
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image: PETA

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Mangroves: Why Humans Need Nature

The first global assessment of mangroves in over a decade has found that a fifth of them have been lost in the past thirty years

The World Mangrove Atlas also found that mangroves -- coastal trees found in 123 tropical and subtropical countries -- are being lost up to four times faster than land-based forests.

"Mangrove forests are the ultimate illustration of why humans need nature," says Dr. Mark Spalding, lead author of the study and senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy, in a recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) press release.

"The trees provide hard, rot-resistant timber and make some of the best charcoal in the world," says Spalding. "The waters all around foster some of the greatest productivity of fish and shellfish in any coastal waters. What's more, mangrove forests help prevent erosion and mitigate natural hazards from cyclones to tsunamis -- these are natural coastal defenses whose importance will only grow as sea level rise becomes a reality around the world."

Mangroves also play an important role in mitigating climate change through sequestering up to 17 metric tons of carbon per year.

"Mangrove forests are naturally resilient and have withstood severe storms and changing tides for many millennia, but they are now being devastated by modern encroachments," according to Alfredo Quarto, the executive director of the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), in an interview with 13.7 Billion Years.

"The rapidly expanding shrimp aquaculture industry poses one of the gravest threats to the world’s remaining mangroves," Quarto says. "Literally thousands of hectares of lush mangrove forests have been cleared to make room for the artificial shrimp ponds of this boom and bust industry. This highly volatile enterprise has grown exponentially over the last 25 years, leaving devastating ruin in its wake. The charcoal and timber industries have also severely impacted mangrove forests, as well as tourism and other coastal developments. Additionally, lenticels -- the porous spots on the exposed portions of mangrove roots -- are highly susceptible to clogging by crude oil and other pollutants, attacks by parasites and prolonged flooding from artificial dikes or causeways. Over time, environmental stress can kill large numbers of mangrove trees."

The total global area of mangrove forests amounts to around 150,000 square kilometers -- about the size of Illinois. Indonesia has the most, with 21% of that area (Brazil is 2nd, with 9%).

"Economic assessments provide some of the most powerful arguments in favour of mangrove management, protection or restoration," according to the UNEP press release. "Studies estimate that mangroves generate between US$2000-9000 per hectare annually, considerably more than alternative uses such as aquaculture, agriculture or insensitive tourism."

Quarto says that a reduction in the demand for shrimp will help protect mangrove forests. But, he says, "If you must eat shrimp, please follow the advice of our “Shrimp Less, Think More” campaign, and eat only shrimp caught or produced in the United States or Canada. These shrimp are caught or raised with much more effective regulations in place and improvements being made, whereas imported shrimp from the global South too often carries with it the terrible burden of social injustice and ecological ruin."

GET INVOLVED
  • Sign a petition to protect the mangroves of Trinidad and Tobago
  • Support the Mangrove Action Project
  • Send a Mangrove Action Project e-card
  • Sign a Mangrove Action Project letter to actress Daryl Hannah (who famously played a mermaid in the 1984 film Splash) to be a mangrove conservation spokesperson
  • Support Trees for the Future, a non-profit organization that has been helping communities around the world plant trees
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image: mangroves converted to aquaculture in Ecuador (credit: Takayuki Tsuji, United Nations Environment Programme)
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Friday, July 16, 2010

Shopper's Guide to Pesticides

If you eat conventional fruits and vegetables, chances are you are also consuming harmful pesticides, too

Get all your fruits and vegetables -- and avoid risky pesticides -- with the latest Shopper's Guide to Pesticides from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

For the past 15 years, EWG has been producing this valuable guide, which according to EWG president Ken Cook, contains "information that conventional agribusiness doesn't want you to know."

The guide was developed based on data from almost 89,000 pesticide residue tests on produce between 2000 and 2008 collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Cook maintains that many of these chemicals are "designed to kill living things and have been linked to health problems like nervous system toxicity, cancer and effects on our hormone system."

Bon appetit!

GET INVOLVED
  • Download the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides (PDF or iPod version)
  • Use these 20 simple and non-toxic beauty product substitutes
  • Find out how to avoid toxic chemicals in beauty products
  • Find out more about the toxic chemicals in bathroom cleaners
  • Download a BeyondPesticides.org factsheet listing products containing triclosan to stop buying products that contain this chemical harmful to dolphins
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Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Meat Industry vs. America's Wild Horses

Today is "I Love Horses" Day. Chances are Obama's Bureau of Land Management isn't celebrating

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- the U.S. Interior Department agency that administers the nation's public lands and the animals who live there -- began its latest roundup of over 1,200 federally-protected wild horses living in Nevada to move them into long-term holding facilities.

However, this was done despite the fact that the BLM, following public criticism of their plan, established an open public comment period, which doesn't end until August.

"Instead of waiting to hear what the American public has to say, BLM officials decided to go forward with these cruel and brutal roundups in the blistering heat of summer (several more are scheduled for the coming weeks)," according to a statement from the ASPCA.

"Once again the Obama Administration is doing the bidding of the livestock industry," says In Defense of Animals (IDA). "Yet the government will continue to allow cattle to graze the same area they claim the horses are overusing."

The ASCPA reminds Americans, "This, of course, is funded by your tax dollars."

To make matters worse, the dangerous, unnecessary and cruel roundup was suspended after the several horses died and many more seriously injured after being run across miles of scorching hot desert by helicopters.

"Since 1971, the BLM has zeroed out over 20 million acres herd areas, shrinking federally-designated wild horse habitat by over 40 percent (including 2.4 million acres lost between 2005 and 2009 alone)," according to IDA.

The BLM plans to remove 6,000 wild horses from their natural range in six western states by October, part of a larger effort to support the American taste for beef.

GET INVOLVED
  • Sign a letter to the Obama administration opposing the "zeroing-out" of Colorado’s West Douglas Herd Area (due July 19)
  • Sign a letter to the Obama administration opposing the roundup and removal of
    480 wild horses in Utah’s Conger Complex
  • Sign a letter to the Obama administration opposing the roundup of 180 wild Horses and Burros in Nevada
  • Sign a letter to the Obama administration opposing the roundup of 445 wild horses near Ely, Nevada
  • Call the White House Comment Line today at (202) 456-1111 and urge the Obama administration to cancel the BLM's scheduled wild horse roundups
  • Support the Cloud Foundation's work to save America's wild horses
RELATED POSTS
image: IDA
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Ta din posisjon på harpunen

(that's "man the harpoon," in Norwegian)

This year, Norway will continue to defy the international ban on commercial whaling, a ban set in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission. (Japan and Iceland are the other two nations that also defy the ban.)

Norway plans to kill 1,286 minke whales -- the highest quota in quarter of a century -- even as the nation boasts a new Animal Welfare Act (which unsurprisingly provides no specific protections for marine mammals -- like minke whales, for example).

The act states that "the killing of animals, and handling in connection with the killing, including stunning, shall take place having regard to the animals’ welfare."

But because a humane method of whale-killing has not yet been invented, some whales, after been shot with rifles and exploding harpoons, suffer in agony for up to an hour, dying a slow and torturous death.

In many ways -- from paternity leave to equality in the workplace -- Norway is one of most modern, progressive and forward-thinking nations in the world. Norwegian women gained the right to vote way back in 1913.

But seen through its lust to kill whales, Norway is certainly one of the most primitive.

GET INVOLVED
  • Tell Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg to stop the suffering of whales today and to live up to Norway's desire to be seen as a progressive and modern country by promoting whale watching, not whale hunting
  • Join Pierce Brosnan and sign the SaveTheWhalesNow.org petition urging President Obama to honor his campaign pledge and use every resource at his disposal to ensure that whaling ceases
  • Listen to the songs of humpback whales (The Whalesong Project)
  • Support Sea Shepherd's efforts to stop whaling
  • Sign the Whale's Revenge petition urging the International Whaling Commission to close the loophole that allows whaling in the name of so-called "scientific research"
  • Learn more about whaling in defiance of the international ban (WSPA)
RELATED POSTS
image: minke whale hauled aboard Norwegian whaling vessel (via BBC News)
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Antidepressants Affecting Arthropods

Shrimp are ingesting our antidepressants. But they're definitely not happier

There are many man-made, biologically-altering chemicals that end up in our rivers, lakes and oceans. From cortisone to testosterone to triclosan (an ingredient of antibacterial soap that has been found in the blood of wild dolphins), the world's waterways have become a veritable pharmacy. And the wildlife is suffering from the constant influx of these undesirable, unnatural substances.

And now, a new U.K. study published in the journal Aquatic Toxicology has found that shrimp exposed to the antidepressant fluoxetine "are five times more likely to swim toward the light instead of away from it -- making them more likely to be eaten by fish or birds, which could have devastating effects on the shrimp population," according to an AlphaGalileo.org press release.

“Much of what humans consume you can detect in the water in some concentration," says Dr. Alex Ford, a marine biologist at Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Portsmouth in Portsmouth, England, and one of the study's authors.

"We’re a nation of coffee drinkers and there is a huge amount of caffeine found in waste water, for example. It’s no surprise that what we get from the pharmacy will also be contaminating the country’s waterways."

GET INVOLVED
  • Visit the Organic Consumers Association Action Center
  • Use these 20 simple and non-toxic beauty product substitutes
  • Find out how to avoid toxic chemicals in beauty products
  • Find out more about the toxic chemicals in bathroom cleaners
  • Download a BeyondPesticides.org factsheet listing products containing triclosan to stop buying products that contain this chemical harmful to dolphins
RELATED POSTS
image: Dr. Alex Ford with live shrimp specimens (via AlphaGalileo.org)
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