Archive for September, 2009

New York City Activists Unfurl 35-foot Banner on High Line to Protest Park’s Use of FSC-Certified Amazon Wood

From Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI) Contact: Tim Doody: rainforestsny@gmail.com Simon Counsell: info@fsc-watch.org Dr. Glen Barry: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org PHOTOS AND VIDEO OF BANNER: http://RFNY.org http://www.flickr.com/photos/32461153@N08/ September 24th, New York: This morning, environmental activists unfurled a 35-foot banner blocking the iconic view of 10th Avenue from the High Line park to protest the Amazon wood [search] used in the park for bleachers, benches and decking. The banner read, "High Crime on the High Line! FSC Lies: Amazon Wood Is Not Sustainable [search]!" Two New York City-based groups, Rainforest Relief and New York Climate Action Group, coordinated the banner action to confront the "First International FSC Friday," an event held on September 25th by the Forest Stewardship Council to promote their certification scheme. According to Friends of the High Line's website, the tropical hardwood used throughout the High Line was certified by FSC-accredited agencies. The wood, called ipê, originates from primary Amazon forests in Brazil and Peru. Ipê trees are typically 250 to 1,000 years old and grow an average of one or two trees per acre.

EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Overshoot: Climate, Inequity and Corruption

By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk A call for reluctant Earth revolutionaries to unite and slay the economic growth machine consuming ecological being. A disease is ravaging Earth as ever more people, consume ever more, destroying natural ecosystems that are our shared habitat. In a few short centuries the violent, expansionist and deeply ecologically unsustainable Western mindset has become virtually universally accepted. The meaning of life is more, ever more of everything, at the expense of a finite biosphere. The emptiness of such a vacuous worldview is revealed through changing climate, devastating human inequities and an irredeemably corrupt economic system. More than just a climate crisis, humanity is facing profound over-population and injustice that are spurring dozens of inter-related ecological and social crises. Billions suffer as their basic human needs go unmet, while billions more gorge themselves. Forests, prairies, streams, rivers, estuaries, wetlands, lakes, soil, oceans, air and all the rest are all life's flesh and blood. Humanity, Earth and kindred species have entered the late stage condition of ecological overshoot -- whereby our cumulative demands upon ecosystems exceed their life-giving capacity and cause them to collapse. We are eating creation. Hardly anyone is thinking or acting ...

ALERT! Join Borneo’s Penan Indigenous Peoples in Standing up to Malaysian Rainforest Destruction

By Rainforest Rescue with Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal with TAKE ACTION! Malaysia is the world's leading rainforest destroying nation. Insist Malaysian authorities respect native customary land rights and boundaries of Penan's last remaining ancestral rainforest reserves; halt rainforest destruction in Sarawak for oil palm, pulp plantations and hydro-electric dams; and ensure rainforest destruction and abuse of indigenous rights by Malaysian companies end globally. MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW: http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=malaysia_penan_blockade