Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have pledged to stop expanding plantations into rainforests [ark]. In late 2006 Ecological Internet was the first to launch a large international protest campaign on this matter -- bringing to the world's attention how oil palm plantations on carbon rich tropical rainforest peatlands were destroying biodiversity, global climate and orangutan habitat. Over 11,000 protestors from 114 countries sent one quarter of a million protest emails to the Indonesian government. On another occasion similar numbers brought the matter to the attention of every UN climate change national focal point. Others including Greenpeace later followed our lead [ark | search].

Together we -- including EI Earth Action Network members -- have achieved these pledges to keep oil palm out of rainforests, and this is a tremendous victory for rainforest and climate protection movement. Certainly more remains to be done. It is still questionable to use food for fuel. Indigenous and other local peoples may still lose their land to corporations. Already cleared peat soils that should be reflooded and restored to hold their carbon are likely to be developed. And the Indonesian government is notoriously fast and loose with promises to disarm environmental campaigns, and enforcement may well lag. Without continued monitoring, this pledge will be disregarded and oil palm will continue to expand even into protected areas [ark] and orangutan habitat [ark]. Yet what makes this victory so savory is that it is the companies buying the palm oil themselves that have made the pledge -- it will be hard for them to renege.

Continue reading "VICTORY! Oil Palm Companies Pledge to Stay Out of Indonesian Rainforests" »

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Support Ecological Internet in Our Fight to Defend the Earth
Please Donate Now

Dear colleagues,

Ecological Internet (EI) is launching our 2008 mid-year fund-raiser during which we must raise $70,000 to remain in operation. Please make your tax-deductible donation now at http://www.climateark.org/donate/. Doing so now is best as the first $15,000 in donations will be doubled by a matching grant, and once you have donated, we promise not to bother you again during this fund-raiser. Every May and November we launch a six week donation campaign that meets most of our modest costs for computers, bandwidth and salaries. Tax-deductible gifts and tithes can be made with credit cards and by mail. EI depends upon YOU and others that love the Earth to continue to succeed.

The Earth system and all life are under threat as never before -- forest decimation, climate change, water scarcity and ocean decline are some of the threats destroying our planet. Non-profit Ecological Internet specializes in the use of the Internet to defend the Earth from these threats. EI's mission is to empower the global movement for environmental sustainability by providing information retrieval tools, portal services, analysis that aid in the conservation of global ecosystems.

Continue reading "New Earth Rising 2008" »

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It is gravely unethical and ecologically devastating to expand production of biofuels by allowing land to be stolen from local Afro-Colombian communities; and at the expense of Colombia's ancient primary rainforests, food security, water resources and regional climate

TAKE ACTION! Plantation expansion for agrofuels remains a major threat to the lives, livelihoods and the environment of Afro-Colombian and other peasant communities in Chocó, Colombia. This is one of the world's most biodiverse regions, with large areas of rainforest now facing destruction. The Chocó rainforests [search] are home to 7,000 to 8,000 species, including 2,000 endemic plant species and 100 endemic bird species. Even before the current palm oil and agrofuel expansion, 66% had been destroyed. Communities and rainforests are under threat from palm oil and sugar cane expansion for agrofuels in other parts of Colombia, too, for example around Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, in Santander and in Magdalena. If agrofuels -- growing food for fuel -- continue to expand in Colombia, food prices are bound to rise and the nation's food security erode as is happening around the world. Please ask the government to stop and reverse those policies and to protect Colombia's communities and rich environment from further destruction for agrofuels. TAKE ACTION!

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Over 110 global environmental groups have came out against chimerical coal industry plans to bury carbon emissions [ark]. This coincides with Greenpeace's release of a new report entitled "False Hope" which correctly concludes that false promises of carbon capture and storage (CCS) [search] prolong the agony of coal dependence. CCS is revealed to be an untested myth that threatens to lock us into antiquated coal energy [search] and an obliterated atmosphere. CCS will not be ready in time (or maybe ever), wastes climate resources, is risky and undermines more rigorous approaches focused upon renewable energy.

It is pleasing to see Greenpeace join other biocentric groups in understanding ending the use of coal is essential to save the climate. Yet as with ancient forests, the question of "clean coal" splits the environmental movement. What is so mystifying is why generally rigorous environmental groups like Greenpeace -- along with so many other groups including Rainforest Action Network -- are so visionary on coal while continuing to insist that logging of ancient forests, equally antiquated and damaging to not only the climate but also biodiversity, can be certified as being environmentally acceptable. The economic dislocation caused by ending ancient forest logging [search] would be much less than ending use of coal. Centuries of both over-burning and over-cutting are the fundamental underpinnings of contemporary ecological decline.

Continue reading "Environmentalists Reject "Clean" Coal Greenwash (but not "Certified" Ancient Forest Logging)" »

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It is easy to rail against "illegal" logging [search], when in fact typical "legal" commercial logging is far more extensive and destructive in total to the world's biodiversity [search], climate [search], water [search] and biosphere [search]. Both liquidate life giving natural habitats, and more people are realizing they are mostly ecologically indistinguishable [ark]. Ancient primary forests industrially harvested for the first time are in fact destroyed -- in terms of being a fully intact ecological system with a unique, unimpaired evolutionary trajectory -- regardless if society considers it legal or illegal. Natural and planted secondary forest ecosystems managed industrially as tree farms become further ecologically diminished with each successive harvest including continued toxification, soil diminishment, species and genetic loss, reduced carbon and water holding potential, and so many other symptoms of ongoing biological homogenization.

Humanity's relationship with all forests must be transformed if we are to stop the hemorrhaging of lost species and halt transformation of the atmosphere. Industrial forestry [search] is incompatible with sustaining the full range of natural forest values [search] -- from species to genes, from soil microbes to local microclimates, from a forest stand to the Earth system and everything in between. Solving the biodiversity [search], climate [search] and water [search] crises requires a new forest protection paradigm that optimizes ecosystem, biodiversity and climate values while ecologically sustainably harvesting the annual growth increment (minus ecological restoration of natural capital to account in the future for past damage).

Continue reading "Legal Logging Destroying the Earth's Biodiversity, Climate, Water and Biosphere" »

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As it is prone to do when the donors come a-calling, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government "has admitted its forestry sector is riddled with corruption" [ark] . This occurred during aid talks with the Australian government, and reflects political posturing to access donor funds on the basis of their rainforest's carbon holding potential. PNG contains the third largest expanse of tropical rainforests [search], though much diminished through years of heavy industrial mismangement.

Sadly there seems to be little acceptance by those pushing avoided deforestation [search] payments that to be effective, this will require an end to industrial logging of primary forests. Astonishingly, while Australia provided donor funds to PNG this week to protect its forests for carbon benefits, Australia continues to log their own primary forests [action]! To pay carbon monies for rainforest protection without ending barbaric first time logging of ancient forests would be meaningless in terms of both biodiversity and climate protection.

Continue reading "Papua New Guinea Admits Illegal Logging" »

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Patagonia's wild rivers to be dammed, destroying ancient temperate forests, for 50 years of electricity; please let supposedly environmentally responsible Home Depot know they should not be doing business with the project's primary Chilean advocate

TAKE ACTION! One of Chile's last true pristine and intact wildernesses is to be dammed and logged to provide hydroelectricity. The dams -- two on the Baker River and three on the Pascua River -- would irretrievably damage Patagonia [search], one of the Earth's wildest and most beautiful places. The HidroAysén project will flood river valleys containing several thousand hectares of ancient primary forests. The project's transmission line would require extensive clearcutting of further pristine Chilean native forests [search], clearing more than a 1,500-mile swath that will impact fourteen national parks and wilderness reserves.

Shockingly, the main Chilean project proponent -- the Matte Group -- does extensive business with U.S. mega-corp Home Depot [search], broadly perceived as being "green". In consultation with International Rivers, Ecological Internet is working to get Matte to withdraw from the project by highlighting their business interests with Home Depot. Please challenge Home Depot to live up to their green image and refuse to participate in the greenwashing of Patagonian wild river and ancient forest destruction. Insist Home Depot cease doing business with Matte until they withdraw from HidroAysén. TAKE ACTION!

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Greenpeace warns in a new report entitled "Turning Up the Heat" that industrial logging in Canada's boreal forests [ark] threatens to turn the country's vast northern forest into a source of global warming. Greenpeace-Canada diagnoses the problem -- Boreal ancient forest logging causes climate change -- while being myopic and inconsistent on the solution, insinuating that industrial logging of ancient forests can be done acceptably. Yet we know first-time selective logging of primary forests releases immediately at least 40% of their carbon, while forever dimininishing future carbon holding potential, leaving behind much diminished tree plantations.

Continue reading "Greenpeace's Inconsistent Forest/Carbon Message on Display in the Canadian Boreal" »

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Done properly tree planting [search] is a hope filled expression of love for nature. But making a hole in the ground and dropping in the seedling is only the beginning. Nearly all planted trees require years of care including watering, weeding and even fencing to become established. Ill-conceived mass tree planting efforts are failing in Nigeria and worldwide [ark] because of failure to plan for this aftercare and other issues like using the wrong species in the wrong place. This is but one misunderstanding regarding tree planting and the environment.

Trees help remove carbon and help restore terrestrial ecosystems, but planted trees are generally not forests. Plantations of only one, often exotic, tree species are crops and not forests. Forests include diverse native tree species with associated understory plants, wildlife and soil microcobes. A natural forest provides ecological processes that are generally absent in tree farms including cycling of water and carbon, while creating soil and habitats.

Continue reading "Planting Trees is the Easy Part" »

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Australia's new "climate friendly" government preaches global forest protection for climate benefits internationally, while continuing to industrially clear its own native primary forests in Tasmania and elsewhere, and this unseemly hypocrisy must end

TAKE ACTION: Australia continues to industrially clear their last native ancient forests [search], even as their government promotes forest protection internationally to combat climate change. Australia's new government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ratified Kyoto [search], appears genuinely committed to global climate change policy, and speaks often of how Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the world must protect primary forests to solve global climate change.

Yet in an act of unseemly doublespeak, the country that is perhaps most impacted by climate change continues to log its last centuries old trees found in ancient forest ecosystems vital for holding both carbon and water. Why is forest protection a good idea internationally but not for Australia's much reduced and climate impacted natural habitats? Australia's new government must be called upon to stop their hypocrisy and end logging of their own old growth forests as a keystone response to climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem sustainability.TAKE ACTION!

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