There can be no future for the Earth or humanity if a relative few live in affluent
opulence while much of the rest suffer grinding, violent poverty. The global
disparity in wealth is horrific. My outspoken advocacy for habitat protection as
a critical component of global ecological sustainability is not at odds with
poverty alleviation, economic equity or social justice. Each is an element of
revolutionary change required to sustain the Planet and maximize the human
race's long-term potential.

Failure to establish more equitable patterns in trade, improve corporate
conduct, promote complete debt relief, end agricultural subsidies in rich
countries and provide massive grant based development aid that promotes
environmentally sensitive self-sufficiency (among other measures) will certainly
mean all the World's forests are coming down, climate will spiral chaotically,
water will be scarce and the oceans depleted. Likewise, failure to maintain
large forests and other important global ecosystems, conserve already
managed habitats, and begin the age of restoration will only exacerbate
poverty and escalate rates of human suffering and ecological collapse.

Global poverty and ecological decline are both indicative of failing political,
economic and social structures. Neither will be successfully addressed without
progress on the other; failure on either resulting in resource wars, terrorism by
both the rich and poor, widespread ecological system failures, and an end to
civilized comforts for those that have them. Industrial resourcism is failing to
meet basic human needs in much of the World. A new paradigm - ecologism -
is required to integrate political economy with ecological sustainability.

To say that protection of nature is anti-human and dismissive of poverty is
simply wrong. Without functioning ecological systems there can be no hope of
realizing the dream of enough for the many forever.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (1)

The rate at which Brazil's rainforests are disappearing has leapt by 40 per cent
in a single year. This follows several years of marginal declines. In the year to
August 2002, an area the size of Belgium was lost. There are plenty of
explanations and blame to go around. As we have highlighted previously, a
major new threat is the clearance of primary rain forests to grow soy beans -
largely for industrial cattle feed in Europe.

Given this terrible global ecological news, there has been a scramble to be seen
as defining and beginning to implement solutions. The Brazilian government
promises to announce new measures shortly. Meanwhile WWF has provided a
list of reasonable policy responses. All but one of their suggestions is
reasonable. However, their goal of 12% protection for the Amazon is
woefully inadequate, and threatens the ecological sustainability of the Amazon
and the Earth.

The Amazon basin drives global climatic cycles, harbors most of the World's life
forms, and is a major component of the biogeophysical processes that make
the Earth habitable. On what basis and authority does WWF acquiesce to losing
over 85% of the Amazon, in the process fragmenting and making it ecologically
impotent? Is this how much is needed for bioregional ecological sustainability?
Or is this what is easily achieved so WWF can claim victory, gather cash, grow
the empire and move on? What is the basis for lobbying to protect only 12% of
the largest largely intact rainforest? I await a response.

My immediate suggestions: 1) Europe and the World must be called upon to end
rainforest destruction subsidies by discontinuing soya and other agricultural
imports from areas previously covered in primary forests; 2) Brazil must
commit to placing under strict protection as "Global Ecological Reserves" over
50% of the Amazon in large core areas that are connected - sustainable
development should be practiced in surrounding buffers; 3) and a major and
sustained international program of financial and technical assistance to Brazil to
support protection and conservation management of the Amazon is needed.

Brazil and neighboring countries have a global responsibility to commit to
protecting the Amazon as a Planetary ecological marvel. The rest of the World
has an equal or greater responsibility to commitment to pay - and pay well in
perpetuity - for them to do so. The Earth and society as we know it will not
survive loss of the Amazon as a functional whole.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (3)

A major and controversial new book, "Eating Apes" by Dale Peterson with Karl
Ammann, is a deeply troubling yet engaging book which examines the
slaughter, for food, of humanity's closest primate relatives. African bushmeat
hunting has skyrocketed - threatening gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos -
which given our shared evolutionary history, is akin to cannibalism.

As I am in final Ph.D. panic mode, I have not yet had the opportunity to read
the entire book. But a good skimming - particularly of the viscerally troubling
photographs of slaughtered primates - filled me with profound feelings of
sadness, and deep regret at the trajectory humans have chosen for ourselves,
our Planet and companion species. I will never forget pictures of "a severed
gorilla head, on a kitchen counter, wear(ing) the sad, glazed expression of a
betrayed friend. What looks at first like a leather driving glove, on a table amid
beer bottles, is a severed gorilla hand."

Though such hunting has been practiced to various extents historically, more
recently European and Asian logging companies have carved new roads into the
forests, paving the way for hunters, traders and settlers. With foreign logging
providing infrastructure, a tenacious symbiosis between logging and hunting has
taken root and a thriving commercial enterprise in bushmeat has exploded.
Some of these loggers have been endorsed as "environmentally friendly" by
large mainstream environmental groups that support "certified" forestry that
industrially logs the World's last large, primary and old-growth forests.

The book is particularly critical of "sustainable logging" in such situations,
quoting and building upon past commentary presented here. The argument
that logging brings much-needed employment and development to Central
Africans is exposed as a falsehood. While "forest certification" sounds highly
progressive - it primarily benefits loggers and their corporate
environmentalists. There is no such thing as environmentally sustainable
commercial logging of primary forests.

Further, Amman questions the phenomenon of "feel-good conservation",
whereby conservationists carry out token, fringe projects that they hail as
major successes, rather than addressing the root causes of deforestation and
species loss. As a result, systematic and widespread habitat loss continues
unabated while a false sense of forest conservation progress is marketed by
logging companies, governments and corporate NGOs.

We all want forest conservation success. But no good comes from denying the
reality of the situation - humans are eating their closest relatives, large forests
are disappearing forever, and the Earth shows signs of ecological collapse -
including water, oceans, atmosphere and land degradation. Conservationists
need to worry more about the root causes of ecological decline, and less about
building their PR based environmental empires. Get this book, read it (I plan to
soon, after done with dissertation), and work to end the bushmeat trade. Here
are two reviews of the book (the first much better) and information about how
to order a copy. I highly recommend it.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (0)

A major report from the U.S. EPA has been edited under White House pressure
to leave out mention of climate change and its environmental impacts. This is
criminally negligent, and an investigation is warranted to determine who and
how White House staffers can "edit" scientific findings. The Bush administration
frequently makes pseudo-scientific claims of support for their "healthy forests"
and other environmental roll-backs, while blasting the "junk science" of their
opponents. This rejection of climate science further illustrates the Bush
administration is largely a fossil fuel oligarchy, that America is virtually alone
in denying the civilization threatening nature of climate change, and the
abysmal, ecocidal record on the environment by the Toxic Texan.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shamefully, old growth rainforest logging continues in Tasmania, Australia.
These ecosystems, which include forests with the tallest hardwood trees in the
world, are being converted into woodchips and sent to Japan for processing.
Recently Tasmania's government announced planned massive increases in old
growth logging in Tasmania. The heart of Australia's most significant temperate
rainforest ecosystem - known as the Tarkine" - is to be opened up to logging.
The cool temperate rainforests of Tasmania are local, national and international
natural treasures; not raw material for throw away consumer products.

Commercial old growth rainforest logging anywhere in the World is immoral,
unethical and ecocidal. In Australia, it is all this, and with just .5% of the land
mass containing rainforests, just plain stupid as well. Concern for the well-
being of forest dependent communities is not demonstrated by industrially
logging and wastefully consuming their resources. Community development
and advancement comes from sustained commitment to empower local
communities to benefit in the long-term preservation and community-based
conservation of their standing forests.

Protecting Tasmania's ancient-forest heritage is an Australian and global
ecological imperative. Ongoing and planned industrial liquidation of Tasmania's
old-growth forests for paper pulp is grotesque and pure evil - indicative of
humanity's lack of an environmental ethic. It must be stopped. Now.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Bush administration's environmental policies are absolutely horrific. He
and his supporters are winning wars, while losing the peace and the Planet.
Below are several updates on the Bush administration's continuing and
intensifying War on the Environment - and one effort to counteract his
dangerous forest policies.

The first outlines the depth and breadth of Bush's attacks on the environment; a
long list ranging from delisting of wilderness, increased logging, obstructing
Kyoto, failure to protect endangered species, and increasing air and water
pollution.

President Bush is an equal opportunity polluter - never having met an
ecosystem that is not worth millions to already well-heeled political supporters.
Oh what I would give to enroll the President in Ecology 101 - assuming he
showed up and did his homework, he may understand that ecosystems are the
essential foundation of life. I will say it again; no ecology, no economy (or
anything else for that matter).

The second article updates our report earlier this week that the Bush
administration had withdrawn an interim directive allowing U.S. roadless forest
protections to stand from the moment. Rest assured this is a pre-election
gambit to not draw more attention to his abysmal environmental record. Bush
and his industry cronies covet the energy and timber in these forests, and they
will continue to stealthily work to destroy America's natural wonders and life-
giving ecosystems.

Protection for America's roadless forests will only be relatively secure when
protected by law. To this end, this week the National Forest Roadless Area
Conservation Act was introduced with bipartisan support in both houses of
Congress. If it becomes law, the bill would codify the Clinton era Roadless
Area Conservation Rule, more permanently protecting 58.5 million acres of
roadless areas in National Forests from road construction and most logging.
Now is the time to contact your representative in support of this measure, and
to begin organizing campaigns.

Recently Gale Norton, the U.S. Interior Secretary and high-priestess of ecocide,
announced that the Interior Department was suspending any new designations
of critical habitat for endangered and threatened species. The reason is lack of
funds, despite willful failure to ask for a supplemental appropriation to the
program's modest budget. The final piece provides more insight on this
announcement, and scathingly echoes my dismay regarding Bush's assault on
the Earth's life-support systems.

The modus operandi for the Bush administration's environmental assaults is
being all too clear and all too deadly. Under the clouds of perma-war, find
multiple manners to undo protections through devious backdoor means (no
funding, endless reviews, etc.), clouded in empty rhetorical proclamations such
as "healthy forests" to mean logging and "clear skies" for increased air
pollution. This brings to mind other classical nonsensical rhetoric including "War
is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" (all which apply to
the Bush regime as well).

"The Bush administration has given up on the art of pretense. There are no
more illusions about its predatory attitude toward the environment. No more
airy talk about how financial incentives and market forces can protect
ecosystems... Now it's down to brass tacks. The Bush administration is steadily
unshackling every restraint on the corporations that seek to plunder what is
left of the public domain."

There is nothing 'radical' about conservation, what is radical is Bush's war on
the environment. The dark side of President Bush's empire building has been
revealed; it is the U.S. running roughshod over America's and the Earth's
natural resources and all that would deny them access. The actions of Bush
and his cronies must not stand. Global ecological sustainability is threatened
from a number of quarters including our consumer behaviors. However, the
Bush administration threatens virtually every aspect of environmental
sustainability at previously unknown intensities.

President Bush is a dangerous man threatening humanity's shared
environmental heritage. I encourage you to resist, educate, organize, advocate
and agitate.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry | Permalink | Comments (1)