PRESS RELEASE

By Ecological Internet, http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/

(The Earth) -- Ecological Internet, the world's leading provider of environmental portals including http://www.ClimateArk.org/ and http://Forests.org/, will soon launch a new Internet e-zine entitled "New Earth Rising". The publication will be committed to biocentric thought, and promote sufficient ecological sustainability solutions to pressing global ecological crises. Today they announce they are accepting submissions for publication.

New Earth Rising will build upon years of ecological sustainability writings and actions on the web by Ecological Internet. In 1995 they introduced the world's first and longest continually running blog, and their President, Dr. Glen Barry, was the writer of the critically acclaimed and recently concluded "Earth Meanders" series of personal essays.

Continue reading "New Earth Rising: Call for Submissions of Original Green Writing " »

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Societies not recognizing their ecological foundation cannot long stand. After decades Brazil begrudgingly accepts [ark | more\ark] with outstretched cupped hand the mighty Amazon's key role in climate protection [search], yet continues with damming and other industrial development. Greenpeace heralds as news Africa's European rainforest loggers avoiding taxes [ark]. Yet similar practices were well-documented in Papua New Guinea 20 years ago, and are nearly universal in the rainforest logging industry.

The critical ecological role played by rainforests' ancient biodiversity [search] and emergent ecosystem processes [search] have been known for decades, yet gains in protection have been slow. We know it is going to take money and ending illegal activities to protect rainforests [search] and their life giving ecosystems services [search]. Progress such as it is results from years of protest by Ecological Internet and many others, yet our deep ecological message that all being is dependent upon rainforests, atmosphere and water cycling energy and nutrients continues to be viewed with suspicion. As go rainforests will go humanity.

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Interesting new findings suggest the Amazon River powers tropical ocean's carbon sinks [ark | more\ark] by transporting nutrients well beyond the continental shelf, pushing carbon capture into the deep ocean. Fed from river transported iron and phosphorus, organisms called diazotrophs pull nitrogen and carbon from the air and make organic solids that sink to the ocean floor. This major river fed tropical ocean carbon sink [search] is thought to be more than enough to offset ocean respiration.

This is yet another startling demonstration of the Earth's cycling of nutrients and energy -- between forests, water, oceans and the atmosphere -- which makes all life possible. Each of these ecosystems is being dismantled to meet exponential human growth without even understanding how they work or interact with the others, threatening the operation of the Earth System [search] -- Gaia if you will. The most urgent task of all human history is to understand how Gaia works even as we work urgently and boldly to maintain her threatened ecosystem processes and patterns. Our and all being depends upon success for our future being.

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The extent to which wetlands are responsible for climate change [ark | more\ark] is becoming dreadfully clear. A recent international conference reveals wetlands [search] contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth, equal to the amount of carbon now in the atmosphere. And now we learn that should wetlands continue to be casually destroyed, it may well release a "carbon bomb" that dramatically amplifies climate change and general ecological collapse.

Wetlands are required for a livable Earth. They account for 6 percent of Earth's land surface, yet produce 25 percent of the world's food, purify water, recharge aquifers and act as buffers against violent coastal storms. About 60 percent of the Earth's wetlands have been destroyed in the past century, mostly through drainage for agriculture. This self-destructive behavior, destroying what seems to be "wastelands", is bereft of ecological understanding, and is one of the most dangerous of many activities dismantling the physical ecological systems upon which life depends.

Continue reading "Wetlands a Potential Carbon Bomb" »

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The Rights and Resources Initiative provides some interesting cautionary advice in new reports, suggesting that rushing to pay for forest protection with carbon funds (REDD) will fail unless land rights [ark] in tropical countries, where much of the money is being directed, is addressed. And another report highlights the growing pressure upon forests to provide food and fuel [ark]. The latter may seem obvious, yet plans continue for tree based biofuels [search], and ever soaring populations need more agricultural lands for food and fuel.

Progress on forest land rights has slowed in recent years. A spokesperson states: "We have huge concerns about sending all this money in the name of fighting climate change if the land rights for people living there are not resolved. It could cause more violence, benefit only a wealthy elite and lead to even greater carbon emissions." Without clear tenure rights for local peoples, money aimed at protecting forests is likely to go to central government officials in countries known for corruption, human rights abuses and lack of environmental commitment. And in many cases local people protect forests better. The suggest more effort is needed to map remote forests and register the people who live there to protect their interests. If massive payments to keep forests intact go to local communitues, one wonders just how supportive governments in fact will be.

Continue reading "Carbon Forest Protection Payments: Who Gets the Check?" »

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The wild and free Xingu River is critical to maintaining intact the Amazon, its peoples and the Earth we share

TAKE ACTION! The Brazilian government is planning to build what would be the world´s third largest dam on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon [search]. The Xingu River in northeast Brazil is a tributary of the Amazon River. The Belo Monte Dam, meant principally to fuel the expansion of aluminum foundries and other industrial plants in the Amazon, would require diverting nearly the entire flow of the Xingu, drying up the “Big Bend” of the Xingu and its tributary, the Bacajá, home to hundreds of indigenous people. Native people upstream would also be affected by the dam´s impacts on fish stocks, their principal food source.TAKE ACTION!

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TAKE ACTION! Leading global consumer products company poised to destroy Ivory Coast's rainforests as both investor and customer, just after its commitment to rainforest protection and certified oil palm was much heralded by some.

One of Côte d’Ivoire's most important primary rainforests [search] is to be cleared by global consumer product company Unilever and others, despite Unilever's recent promises to buy only "sustainable" palm oil [search] from lands not cleared of rainforests for their production. Tanoé Swamps Forest in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is one of the last remaining old growth forests in the country and the last refuge for three highly endangered primates -- the Miss Waldron Colobus, the Geoffroy’s colobus and the Diana roloway -- as well as home to many endangered plant species. The palm oil company PALM-CI has just begun destroying this 6,000 hectare forest to convert it to oil palm plantations, despite local and international protests. Unilever is one of the main companies behind PALM-CI and the destruction of the Tanoé Swamps Forest. After sending the first protest email to Unilever, you will be forwared to a second protest email asking the government of Côte d’Ivoire to ensure that the forest and the communities that depend on it are fully protected. TAKE ACTION!

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PRESS RELEASE

15% protection of last large intact forest ecosystems, and promotion of continued ancient forest diminishment, are insufficient to maintain Earth's ecosystems, climate, biosphere and human advancement.

This week the Democratic Republic of Congo announced new protections for 10% of their rainforest [ark] , moving towards Brazil's goal of 15% preservation of the Amazon. WWF and other environmental groups hailed 85% industrial destruction and diminishment of the rest of the world's remaining large forest ecosystems as good news. At the UN biodiversity talks in Bonn, WWF organized non-binding national pledges to end deforestation [ark], ignoring biological simplification caused by industrial forestry. WWF promotes first-time ancient primary forest logging [search] which is nearly as bad ecologically as total deforestation. These inadequate responses come as a new study shows ecosystem loss is already costing hundreds of billions [ark] of dollars a year.

Ecological Internet is committed -- as keystone responses to the climate, biodiversity, water and food crises -- to ending all industrial development of the world's remaining primary and natural ecosystems, and committing to strict protection for half of the world's land and sea as global ecological reserves. The remainder will need to be ecologically managed to sustainably meet human needs in perpetuity. This will require massive ecological restoration and protection of forest remnants in over-developed countries, and major new protected areas (increased by 3-5 times) in countries holding the Earth's remaining primary natural habitats.

Continue reading "WWF's Rainforest Protection Goals Prolong Ecological Decline" »

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TAKE ACTION: Dam construction must not damn opportunity for protection of one of Asia's last intact, fully functional natural ecosystems.

The Cardamom Mountains [search] in Southwest Cambodia -- one of the world’s priceless ecological treasures -- contain the region's last true wilderness with untouched rivers cascading to the Gulf of Thailand. This is one of Asia's last unbroken, large primary forest expanses with wild waterways linking mountain-top and ocean, containing still intact extensive tracts of lowland evergreen forest, and holding over 40 globally threatened species. The Cambodian government is preparing to dam and flood the Cardamom Mountains' riverways with a dubious hydroelectric scheme. There are many better-suited dam sites in the Cardamom landscape than the Areng River. Prime Minister Hun Sen's government should demonstrate wise leadership and fully protect the Cardamom Mountains. TAKE ACTION!

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Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia have pledged to stop expanding plantations into rainforests [ark]. In late 2006 Ecological Internet was the first to launch a large international protest campaign on this matter -- bringing to the world's attention how oil palm plantations on carbon rich tropical rainforest peatlands were destroying biodiversity, global climate and orangutan habitat. Over 11,000 protestors from 114 countries sent one quarter of a million protest emails to the Indonesian government. On another occasion similar numbers brought the matter to the attention of every UN climate change national focal point. Others including Greenpeace later followed our lead [ark | search].

Together we -- including EI Earth Action Network members -- have achieved these pledges to keep oil palm out of rainforests, and this is a tremendous victory for rainforest and climate protection movement. Certainly more remains to be done. It is still questionable to use food for fuel. Indigenous and other local peoples may still lose their land to corporations. Already cleared peat soils that should be reflooded and restored to hold their carbon are likely to be developed. And the Indonesian government is notoriously fast and loose with promises to disarm environmental campaigns, and enforcement may well lag. Without continued monitoring, this pledge will be disregarded and oil palm will continue to expand even into protected areas [ark] and orangutan habitat [ark]. Yet what makes this victory so savory is that it is the companies buying the palm oil themselves that have made the pledge -- it will be hard for them to renege.

Continue reading "VICTORY! Oil Palm Companies Pledge to Stay Out of Indonesian Rainforests" »

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