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Archive for March 10th, 2010
Flower farms may be killing Kenya’s Lake Naivasha
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2010
Mongabay: Heavily polluted and shrinking, Lake Naivasha is in dire trouble. Environmentalists say the cause is clear: flower farms. Some 60 flower farms line the entire lakeside, growing cut flowers for export largely to the EU. While the flowers industry is Kenya's largest horticultural export (405.5 million last year) it may have also produced an environmental nightmare. Environmentalists say that flower farms have taken water from the lake for irrigation and then dumped pesticide-waste back ...
UN brings in top scientists to review IPCC report on Himalayan glaciers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2010
Guardian: The UN called in the world's top scientists today to review a report by its climate body, four months after public confidence in the science of global warming was shaken by the discovery of a mistake about the melting rates of Himalayan glaciers. In an announcement at the UN in New York Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and Rajendra Pachauri, the much-criticised head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the InterAcademy Council, which represents 15 national ...
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Comments Off on UN brings in top scientists to review IPCC report on Himalayan glaciersTanzania: Weather changes turn farming into gamble with nature
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2010
Inter Press Service: Changes in weather patterns have turned agriculture into a gamble with nature for Tanzanian farmers. Prolonged droughts and floods have made the lives of small-scale farmers, who don't have access to irrigation, extremely difficult. In Tanzania, where the economy is largely driven by agriculture, the largely poor, rural population has become even more vulnerable. According to the national Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), agriculture accounts for up to 60 percent of the country's ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Tanzania: Weather changes turn farming into gamble with naturePapua New Guinea: New Frog FoundHas “Striking” Color Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 10th, 2010
National Geographic: A newfound frog species undergoes a "striking" change from a black, yellow-spotted youngster to a peach-colored, blue-eyed adult, scientists say. Oreophryne ezra was discovered in 2004 in a tiny, mountaintop cloud forest in southeastern Papua New Guinea. The forest has been long avoided by locals, who believe the misty jungle to be taboo, and perhaps guarded by spirits. Though a few other frogs are known to switch colors as they mature, "I don't think the difference in color ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Papua New Guinea: New Frog FoundHas “Striking” Color Change