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Nature is everywhere - even in cities, and needs to be protected, nurtured and assisted to expand and recover.
Finding patches of wilderness in the city | csmonitor.com
The National Audubon Society, famous for its preserves far into the wilderness, is reversing a 100-year-old tradition with a plan to open patches of wilderness... in urban communities.
California's ecosystems are collapsing. Climate change induced drought, burning of fragmented and ecologically diminished forests, and mudslides on denuded hillsides is ecosystem collapse. Until humanity learns to live with and not against nature, this is only the beginning stage of ecological armaggedon.
The Bush administration has opened 300,000 more acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest to road building, logging and other development - continuing a holiday tradition of stealthily announcing regressive environmental policy. The last great American temperate rainforest wilderness is to be gutted. The area being opened includes many of the forest's oldest trees coveted by the timber industry, the most valuable watersheds, as well as an extraordinary collection of wildlife. And because these acres are distributed among 50 different logging projects, the new roads required to reach them will inevitably violate even more of the forest. U.S. taxpayers will pay the bill for timber sales which will bring in less revenue than the cost of preparing the sales and building roads, and for which there is little market for the timber. "Paying to build and maintain more roads to cut more trees no one wants is suspect public policy." President Bush is an environmental extremist - liquidating America's ecosystems for the benefit of his cronies. His behavior threatens the ecological sustainability of the Earth.
This is a potentially major news development full of ecological cause and effect. Vast, tightly packed cattle and other livestock herds are ripe for disease. Intensive cattle ranching is clearly ecologically unsustainable on a number of criteria. I occasionally eat beef, but having grown up on a homestead where we raised our own food, long for the return to a simpler, safer era of animal husbandry. Perhaps this will help get us there (if it does not kill us first).
ENN News Story - First U.S. mad cow disease prompts ban on beef sales
The first case of deadly mad cow disease in the United States has shaken the country's $27 billion U.S. cattle industry and prompted top importers in Asia to slap bans on American beef.
In addition to aesthetic and recreational services, National Parks provide critical watershed, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. Indications are that protected areas need to be a much higher percentage of the landscape if bioregional ecological sustainability is to be achieved. Maine and the nation would be well served by demonstrating large National Parks are still able to be designated in this day and age.
Boston.com / News / Local / At loggerheads over Maine woods
The subject is a proposed national park... which would encompass 3.2 million acres of the most spectacular wild area east of the Mississipppi River.
Conservation easements - whereby development rights are sold, restricting by deed some types of development - are fueling a boom in land conservation and helping to protect more than 6 million acres nationwide. "Easements have helped safeguard fragile ecosystems, critical watersheds, land bordering national parks and some of the nation's most stunning vistas." However, the following article notes proliferating problems and abuses as they gain in popularity - including use for tax evasion and failure to enforce development restrictions. It would be a shame to see this important conservation instrument lost as a result of these abuses.
Cultural genocide and rainforest ecocide are too high of price to pay for gasoline. This is occurring in Ecuador as Indians in the Amazon fight to protect their land from marauding oil companies and elitist government officials. In the northern Ecuadorean Amazon, Indians are suing U.S. based ChevronTexaco over environmental damage they say ruined their land and made people sick. When it rains, oily pits left by Texaco continue to leak a black sludge into rivers. This and the fact that so little benefits have accrued to local communities has rightly made many of Ecuador's Indians wary of promises of "black gold". Further south, the struggle of the Sarayacu and other indigenous groups has become a flashpoint for opposition to the oil industry, as their peaceful protest marches have been violently attacked by pro-oil forces. Against this backdrop, the Ecuadorian government plans to open virtually all remaining pristine rainforests of the Southern Ecuadorian Amazon to oil companies, which is certain to lead to more indigenous conflict and environmental devastation. Rainforests of the Ecuadorean Amazon are a biological and cultural treasure to be protected at all costs. The age of reckless abandon is over - oil production in environmentally sensitive areas against the wishes of local peoples is unacceptable.
Think there is nothing one person can do to save the world's biota? Think again. Around the world courageous individuals and small groups are literally laying their lifes on the line for our ecological sustainability. Join in...
It will be a jailhouse Christmas for anti-logging matriarch Betty Krawczyk, who refuses to trade in her cell for a promise not to protest.
The environmentally challenged Bush administration faced a number of significant setbacks this week in their relentless efforts to undermine America's environmental protections (interestingly, coinciding with civil liberty court losses, indicative of the same autocratic indifference). The administration dropped plans to reduce protection of America's wetlands, and a federal court ruled that the ban on snowmobiles in some National Parks, including Yellowstone, must move forward. And the U.S. Forest Service has decided to drop a proposal to ignore e-mails from people commenting on pending rules and regulations, which is a victory for groups such as Forests.org that use the Internet to express concerns to the government.
It does not seem like much - protecting the nation's water filtration systems, keeping National Parks free from vehicular pollution and damage, and defending free speech. After all, would you defend driving a motorbike through the National Chapel as a form of recreation? Likewise, National Parks are sacred and to be enjoyed in a non-polluting and minimally diminishing manner. In regards to wetlands, I reckon even roughneck Texans drink water. If the past is any guide, rest assured that the Bush administration will again seek to destroy both parks and water, while disregarding the public, but in a more surreptitious manner. However, it is hoped that this week's stunning victories may well represent a turning point.
Let us work to make the end of 2003 the high-point in the Toxic Texan's assault upon the Earth and all its inhabitants. This is an international issue. Given America's natural resource gluttony, and the Bush administration's imperialistic bent, America now threatens the World's environment and security more so than ever. In this spirit, I highly recommend a new web site entitled "Bush Green Watch" at http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/ which is dedicated to "Tracking the Bush Administration's Environmental Misdeeds", which already number in the hundreds. Much more information on these matters may be found on the Forest Conservation Portal at http://forests.org/america/ .
How ironic it would be if two victorious powers in World War II were to doom the world to ecological armaggedon by failing to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. Should Russia follow the U.S. lead they will be equally and deservedly vilified by history as eco-criminal regimes.
17/12/2003 -- EU President Says Russia Ready to Ratify Climate Protocol
European Commission President Romano Prodi today assured the world that Europe is wedded to the Kyoto climate protocol and expressed confidence that Russia will join the pact so that it can become legally binding
Could it be that the continuous assault upon the environment by the Toxic Texan has peaked - perhaps due to outrage over regressive environmental policy?
ENN News Story - Bush abandons effort to rewrite wetlands regulations
President Bush is abandoning a plan that could have further reduced wetlands protections
The illegal mahogany trade has had devastating effects on the Amazon rainforest. The trade is largely driven by American demand for fancy timbers, and Greenpeace and others have protested this important link for years. In yet another brazen attempt to undermine civil liberties (under the fog of self-fulfilling perma-war), the "Clearcut Cowboy" is using an obscure "sailor mongering" law to stifle peaceful civil disobedience by Greenpeace.
The indictment is the first time a non governmental organization has been charged for free speech activities of its members. Greenpeace had been protesting entry of illegal mahogany - under U.S. law it is illegal to import mahogany that has been illegally exported. Rather than "indicting Greenpeace for blowing the whistle on illegal smuggling, our government should be intercepting the contraband and prosecuting the smugglers."
This case clearly illustrates the Bush administration's contempt for the environment and civil liberties, and misuse of power for a political vendetta. Along with the "Patriot Act", pre-emptive war, and contempt for global society and the environment - these policies hint of modern day fascism in America - properly defined as authoritarian government closely aligned with business interests.
Who will Ashcroft's army come for next? During the Nazi era and other times of evil imperial power, people often kept silent as long as they were not targeted. Bush's prosecution of Greenpeace - which threatens their non-profit status - is a "threat to all Americans (and indeed the world)... selective prosecution of a group like Greenpeace merely because the government disagrees with its point of view would set a devastating precedent." Silence in the face of Bush fascism will mean loss of liberty, resource driven war, and the death of the Earth and many of its inhabitants - including humankind. Stop Bush.
Who decides which foods you eat? Governments or Individuals? Genetically modified foods seek to fix something that is not broken - further commodifying life. This can only lead to more concentration of power and more human hunger.
Planet Ark : EU gets ready for test vote on five-year GMO ban
"Food specialists from EU member states, deeply split over gene-modified (GM) foods, vote next week on a proposal to end the bloc's five-year biotech ban..."
The revisions on my PhD were just accepted - I am a doctor!
Recent findings in climatic and biological science indicate that planted monocultural tree plantations make for biologically depauperate forests; are poor and impermanent carbon sinks; and provide few environmental, social or local economic benefits. It is also becoming apparent that given expected climatic feedbacks upon vegetation, that forests are a tenuous and potentially impermanent holder of carbon. While simply farming trees may yield relatively few ecological benefits in terms of biodiversity and climate change mitigation, the far more ambitious aspirations of restoration ecology and restoration forestry hold great potential to repair past ecological wounds and promote global ecological sustainability.
For tree planting to contribute meaningfully to climate change mitigation and biological diversity conservation, it is critical that the emphasis be upon expanding the size, connectivity and overall extent of diverse natural plant communities and their emergent ecosystem processes across landscapes. Far too much of the discussion regarding carbon sinks has revolved around promotion of industrial forest plantations. Sufficient responses to climate change (and biodiversity loss) require realization of a more ecologically rigorous vision of carbon sinks. More emphasis needs to be upon the types of restoration activities occurring in Brazil's Atlantic forests (more here).
There is no better climate policy than reducing emissions. However, to the extent that forests can sequester carbon, the most permanent and otherwise environmentally advantageous outcomes result from strictly protecting existing large, primary forests in order that their carbon remains fixed, and assisting remnants to naturally regenerate and expand. Restoration forestry seeks to wed rigorous ecological management to equitable social and sustainable economic benefits. Let us work together to usher in an era of ecological restoration marked by hope, equity, justice and sustainability.
Yet another MAJOR environmental rollback...
New Forest-Thinning Policy Drops Safeguard for Wildlife
The Toxic Texan has "quietly adopted a rule that would expedite timber-thinning projects by removing a safeguard for endangered species..."
Let the Logging Begin!!!
Forests are burning because of climate change, past fire suppression, drought, and past intensive forest management - NOT because they need more logging. This bill is electoral policy folly and will cause even greater biological diminishment and fire in the future - mark my words.
Brazil's Xingu River Dam to Damn Amazonian Rainforests and Peoples
9/7 - Australia: Climate shift to hurt species, Wimmera Mail Times
9/7 - United Kingdom: Blow to biofuels expansion, Financial Times
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