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Archive for July, 2010
Risk of Exotic Pets Morphing into Invasive Pests
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Inter Press Service: Turtles, frogs, toads and many kinds of birds are imported into Mexico as pets by the thousands every year, but they constitute an environmental and economic threat when they are invasive exotic species. Since April a reform of the General Law on Wildlife has prohibited imports of such species, but in practice Mexico continues to allow these animals to enter the country. Pet shops rely on them for their lucrative trade. "The only way to combat invasive species is to effectively ...
Why eating greens won’t save the planet
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
New Scientist: IF YOU'RE a typical westerner, you ate nearly 100 kilograms of meat last year. This was almost certainly the costliest part of your diet, especially in environmental terms. The clamour for people to eat less meat to save the planet is growing ever louder. "Less meat = less heat", proclaimed Paul McCartney in the run-up to last December's conference on global warming in Copenhagen. And this magazine recently recommended eating less meat as a way to reduce our environmental ...
BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Inter Press Service: Shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico grow with drops of petroleum inside them, coyotes eat oil-soaked birds, and sharks suffocate when the oil coats their gills. Oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters, says Harriet Perry, director of the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. Many kinds of fish and shore birds feed on those young crabs. And this is just ...
Can Brazil save the Amazon?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Energy Collective: This morning I woke up in a hotel in Manaus, Brazil, had breakfast overlooking the Negro River, then went for a run along the river's beaches. It was an enjoyable way to begin my first visit to Brazil, a six-day, government-backed, jam-packed tour with a focus on the environmental issues facing the Amazon. Environmentalists have labored for decades to protect the impossibly vast rainforests of the Amazon, which make up more than half of the world's tropical forests. But until recently ...
In Fla., resentment washes ashore along with oil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Associated Press: For decades, billions poured into Gulf Coast states that allowed oil drilling off their shores. Economies grew, jobs were created and millionaires were born all along the waterfront. Everywhere, that is, except Florida. People of all political stripes largely banded together in the Sunshine State, united in opposition to offshore drilling and confident the peninsula's $61 billion tourist-driven economy hinged on a pristine environment. Fearing the doomsday an accident could bring -- ...
Indonesia: Planned 5-year peatland moratorium seen as ‘half-hearted government policy’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Jakarta Post: The government initiative to entail a five-year moratorium on peatland conversion is a half-hearted policy if the country still wants to seriously mitigate climate change, activists said Saturday. They said the moratorium to shift the peatland for business use should be permanent since the area held huge stocks of carbon emissions. "If the government wants to end peatland conversions, there is no story about timelines; it must be permanent," executive director of Forest ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Indonesia: Planned 5-year peatland moratorium seen as ‘half-hearted government policy’Second Zijin mine spill in China hits export hub
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Reuters: Toxic waste from a copper mine spill has been washed downriver into Guangdong province, China's main export hub, as scrutiny intensifies of the embattled mining company's links to local government officials. A second leak at Zijin Mining Group's site in eastern Fujian province has now caused copper levels to soar two-thirds in the Guangdong section of the Ting river, threatening fish farmers' livelihood, the China Daily said. The eight-hour spill was the second in a month, ...
Mahogany market in US threatening the lives of uncontacted natives in the Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Mongabay: Consumers in the US purchasing mahogany furniture may be unwittingly supporting illegal logging in a Peruvian reserve for uncontacted indigenous tribes, imperiling the indigenous peoples' lives. A new report by the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC) provides evidence that loggers are illegally felling mahogany trees in the Murunahua Reserve where it is estimated some 200 uncontacted natives live. "It would be a tragedy for US citizens to continue buying Peruvian mahogany if it puts the ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Mahogany market in US threatening the lives of uncontacted natives in the AmazonFollowing public outcry, New Zealand drops plan to mine protected areas
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
Mongabay: The New Zealand government has caved to public pressure, announcing that it is dropping all plans to mine in protected areas. The plan to open 7,000 hectares of protected areas to mining would have threatened a number of rare and endemic species, including two frogs that are prehistoric relics virtually unchanged from amphibian fossils 150 million years old: Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi) and Hochstetter's frog (Leiopelma hochstetteri). In May 40,000 protestors marched in New ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Following public outcry, New Zealand drops plan to mine protected areas30 Amphibian Species Wiped Out in Panama Forest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 20th, 2010
National Geographic: A "catastrophic" epidemic has made 30 amphibian species locally extinct in a region of Panama--including 5 species that were lost before they were even formally identified, a new study says. The species are the latest victims of the deadly chytrid fungus, which has caused major amphibian declines in Central and South America as well as in Australia since the late 1990s. The fungus infects an amphibian's skin, sloughing off the skin's layers and causing lethargy, weight loss, and ...