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News
EcoEarth.Info Environment RSS Newsfeed
EcoEarth.Info Environment RSS Newsfeed
Vast Environmental Sustainability News and Information from http://www.EcoEarth.Info/: An Information Gateway Empowering the Movement for Environmental Sustainability
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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Global warming skepticism rising in the GOP
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LA Times: It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty -- two rising Republican stars -- supported legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But in recent weeks, both have begun to express doubts about whether cars, factories and power plants have anything to do with global warming. The shift by Rubio and Pawlenty -- as well as other prominent Republicans -- reflects the rising power of climate change skeptics in the GOP, where global warming is becoming a litmus test for ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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UN to review errors made by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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Times (UK): The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility. A team of the world's leading scientists will investigate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ask why its supposedly rigorous procedures failed to detect at least three serious overstatements of the risk from global warming. The review will be overseen by the InterAcademy Council, whose members are drawn from ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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China and India Join Climate Agreement
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New York Times: China and India formally agreed Tuesday to join the international climate change agreemen reached last December in Copenhagen, the last two major economies to sign up. The two countries, among the largest and fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, submitted letters to the United Nations agreeing to be included on a list of countries covered by the so-called Copenhagen Accord, a three-page nonbinding statement reached at the end of the contentious and chaotic ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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James Hansen keen on next-generation nuclear power
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Australian: RENEWABLE energy won't save the planet so it's time to go nuclear, according to one of world's most high-profile climate scientists. "We should undertake urgent focused research and development programs in next generation nuclear power," said atmospheric physicist James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and adjunct professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. While renewable energies such as solar and wind were gaining in economic ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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Greens protest genetically modified potato go-ahead
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Agence France-Presse: Green members of the European parliament stood en masse and held up placards Tuesday in protest against the EU Commission approval of the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes. The deputies help up placards that read "For a GMO free Europe" as one of their number, Rebecca Harms, berated European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso for last week's decision. German MEP Harms called it a "risky strategy that will not find support" among EU citizens. "There is no ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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China, India give qualified nod to climate deal
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Associated Press: China and India have given their qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions. More than 100 countries had earlier responded to a request to be "associated" with the nonbinding agreement brokered by President Barack Obama at the December climate change summit in the Danish capital. But the delay in replying by the world's two fastest-growing polluters had raised concern the accord could be rendered meaningless, ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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China, India Sign Up to Copenhagen Climate-Change Agreement
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Bloomberg: China and India signed on to the Copenhagen climate-change agreement reached in December in the Danish capital, meaning all the world's largest emitters have now agreed to the deal. Chinese lead negotiator Su Wei today wrote to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to add his country's name to the agreement. The letter was posted on the body's Web site. India Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh today told parliament that India had also signed up. "Our ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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The Local Food and Farming Revolution
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Energy Bulletin: [Note: This presentation was developed for the Colorado Agriculture "Big and Small" Conference in Brighton, Colorado, on Feb. 26, 2010] Before I get into the presentation, a few words about where I'm coming from. As it happens, I grew up in a little farming community in northeastern Colorado--Yuma--where my family owned the local drug store (complete with soda fountain). I'm a journalist and communicator at heart, and I started working for the local newspaper in Yuma when I was ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Climate forest deal in sight: Indonesia
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Agence France-Presse: Wealthy and developing nations should be able to seal an agreement this year on deforestation, unlocking a key part of the next treaty on global warming, Indonesian negotiators said Monday. At December's Copenhagen climate summit, six nations pledged a total of 3.5 billion dollars to help developing countries fight the loss of forests, seen as a leading cause of global warming along with industrial pollution. Basah Hernowo, a senior official in Indonesia's forestry ministry, ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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EU faces court challenge over biofuels reports
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Reuters: Four environmental groups have sued the European Union's executive for withholding documents they say will add to a growing dossier of evidence that biofuels harm the environment and push up food prices. The lawsuit, lodged with the EU's General Court, the bloc's second highest court, alleges several violations of European laws on transparency and democracy. But the European Commission countered that the action was premature as it had not formally refused access and had already ...
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Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming RSS Newsfeed
Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming RSS Newsfeed
The Climate Ark is a Climate Change Portal and Internet Search Tool that provides access to reviewed climate change and renewable energy news and information -- http://www.climateark.org/
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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At White House: 14 senators discuss climate-energy legislation
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Christian Science Monitor: The fate of President Obama's plan to shift America toward renewable energy and away from fossil fuels may depend on the outcome of a crucial White House meeting Tuesday with 14 key senators, many from coal- and oil-producing states, who have long opposed curbs on carbon emissions. Mr. Obama – often criticized for being too hands off on complex and controversial climate-energy legislation after it became stalled in the Senate last year – now appears to be making a full-court press to ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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Global warming skepticism rising in the GOP
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LA Times: It wasn't long ago that Marco Rubio and Tim Pawlenty -- two rising Republican stars -- supported legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But in recent weeks, both have begun to express doubts about whether cars, factories and power plants have anything to do with global warming. The shift by Rubio and Pawlenty -- as well as other prominent Republicans -- reflects the rising power of climate change skeptics in the GOP, where global warming is becoming a litmus test for ...
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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UN to review errors made by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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Times (UK): The United Nations is to announce an independent review of errors made by its climate change advisory body in an attempt to restore its credibility. A team of the world's leading scientists will investigate the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ask why its supposedly rigorous procedures failed to detect at least three serious overstatements of the risk from global warming. The review will be overseen by the InterAcademy Council, whose members are drawn from ...
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03/04/2010 02:00 PM
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Fish Fry: How Will a Warming World Impact U.S. Trout Populations?
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Scientific American: Dear EarthTalk: A fisherman friend of mine told me that trout populations in the interior West of the U.S. are already shrinking due to global warming. Is this true? And what is the long term prognosis for the trout? --Jon Klein, Portsmouth, N.H. Most scientists agree that the effects of global warming are starting to show up all around the world in many forms. Throughout America's Rocky Mountain West, rivers and streams are getting hotter and drier, presenting new challenges ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Obama wants climate bill passed this year: Senator
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Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama still wants Congress to pass a climate bill this year, Republican Senator Susan Collins told reporters on Tuesday after meeting with the president. Obama gathered key Republican and Democratic senators at the White House to talk about the climate bill, seeking to jump-start stalled efforts to overhaul U.S. energy policy.
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Chanel does climate change, with real icebergs
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Associated Press: Models in head-to-toe yeti suits picked their way around towering but quickly melting icebergs, sloshing through a deep puddle of Arctic melt in their shaggy fake fur. Call it climate change chic, Chanel style. Designer Karl Lagerfeld looked Tuesday to global warming, turning the melting of the polar ice caps into fodder for Chanel's fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear look. Because, after all, what use is the threat of a catastrophe of global proportions if not to fuel fashion ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Hedegaard sets out strategy for global climate talks
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European Voice: Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate action, set out a strategy to restore momentum to international talks on climate change today, even though she admitted the chances of getting a global deal agreed by the end of this year were slim. International talks on a new global agreement to tackle climate change re-start next month in Bonn and build up to a major United Nations conference in CancĂșn, Mexico at the end of the year. Speaking to the European Parliament ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Guardian Media Group launches sustainability vision
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Guardian: Guardian Media Group, the multimedia business whose diverse portfolio includes the Guardian and Observer, today launches an integrated sustainability vision and strategy to address issues ranging from climate change to ethical procurement. The 'Power of 10' vision is based on the belief that the group, which also includes radio stations, magazines and business to business media, can have a multiplier effect by educating and influencing its millions of readers, web users, and listeners ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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U.S. "cap and trade" rebranded "pollution reduction"
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Reuters: Like a savvy Madison Avenue advertising team, senators pushing climate-control legislation have decided to scrap the name "cap and trade" and rebrand their product as "pollution reduction targets." A clunky and difficult term to define for laymen and some politicians, "cap and trade" had become dirty words on Capitol Hill in recent months. Republicans called the plan nothing more than "cap and tax" and one influential senator took great pains last week to declare cap and trade ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Lieberman Says Climate-Change Proposal Will Be Ready This Month
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Bloomberg: Senator Joseph Lieberman said lawmakers plan to complete a draft of climate-change legislation this month before taking an Easter break, as Republicans insisted the measure should be narrower than a House-passed bill. Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, is working with Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to craft compromise legislation after proposals for a broad emissions-trading program drew criticism from both political ...
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Forests.org: Forest Protection Portal RSS Newsfeed
Forests.org: Forest Protection Portal RSS Newsfeed
Vast Rainforest, Forest and Biodiversity Conservation News and Information -- http://forests.org/
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03/10/2010 02:00 PM
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Greens protest genetically modified potato go-ahead
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Agence France-Presse: Green members of the European parliament stood en masse and held up placards Tuesday in protest against the EU Commission approval of the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes. The deputies help up placards that read "For a GMO free Europe" as one of their number, Rebecca Harms, berated European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso for last week's decision. German MEP Harms called it a "risky strategy that will not find support" among EU citizens. "There is no ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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The Local Food and Farming Revolution
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Energy Bulletin: [Note: This presentation was developed for the Colorado Agriculture "Big and Small" Conference in Brighton, Colorado, on Feb. 26, 2010] Before I get into the presentation, a few words about where I'm coming from. As it happens, I grew up in a little farming community in northeastern Colorado--Yuma--where my family owned the local drug store (complete with soda fountain). I'm a journalist and communicator at heart, and I started working for the local newspaper in Yuma when I was ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Ecologists turn exterminators in the great rat hunt
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Independent (UK): The world's biggest rat-hunt is being mounted to rid a South Atlantic island of the rodents eating their way through millions of endangered seabirds. The first phase of the eradication programme will start next February on South Georgia in the hope of returning the island to its previous state as a globally important breeding site for seabirds. Over the centuriers, the rats arrived on South Georgia off whaling ships and sealers. Since then, their population has grown to several ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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GM crops flourishing in developing world, says report
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SciDev.Net: The planting of genetically modified crops has surged, particularly in developing countries, because of the global food crisis, according to a report. The number of countries growing GM crops has increased from six in 1996, the first year of commercialisation, to 25 in 2009, says the latest annual report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA), released in Beijing last month (23 February). Around 134 million hectares worldwide are ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Frog in Australia goes from 'extinct' to very, very endangered
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Mongabay: Facing habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and the devastating chytrid fungus, there has been little positive news about amphibians recently. However, a story out of Australia brings a much needed respite from bad news. In 2008 Luke Pearce, a fisheries conservation officer, stumbled on a frog that had been thought to be extinct for over thirty years. Not recorded since the 1970s, Pearce rediscovered the yellow-spotted bell frog (Litoria castanea) on rural Australian farmland in ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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The five-year race to save India's vanishing tigers
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Guardian: The poachers perch on the rough platforms they have built in the trees about 15 feet above the forest floor, waiting patiently for the tiger to come. They have been searching the forests of India's Ranthambhore reserve for days, following the pug marks and other tell-tale signs. When they found the fresh kill, they knew it would only be a matter of time before the tiger returned to eat. Working quickly, they placed their traps on the path, scattering small stones across the dry sandy soil, ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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Rise in UK carbon emissions disputed by report
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Guardian: A major study for the UK government has cast doubt over claims that rising temperatures are causing soil to pump greater amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fuelling global warming. In 2005 it was reported in the science journal Nature that over the past 25 years 100m tonnes of carbon dioxide had been released by the soil of England and Wales. The figure cancelled out all emissions cuts in the UK since 1990. However, a national survey of the soils of Great ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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After almost four decades, the elm stages a comeback
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Independent (UK): Hundreds of schools across Britain are about to start a project that could, one day, lead to the restoration of what was once a defining tree of our open, lowland landscapes: the elm. Some 250 schools have received saplings grown from cuttings taken from some of the few mature trees that survived the outbreak of Dutch elm disease that killed 25 million elms from the late 1960s onwards. The scheme, run by the Conservation Foundation and known as the Great British Elm Experiment, will ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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California looks to Australia for lessons on water management
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Pasadena Star-News: Over the past decade, Australia has seen its temperatures rise, its reservoirs plummet, and its crops dry up - the result of the country's worst drought in 100 years. The experience rings familiar to California water managers. In response to its crisis, Australia has made a $50 billion government investment in water infrastructure, cut water allocations to farmers by 70 percent, and slashed household water use to a quarter of what is used in Californian homes. And it seems to ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Grimsby to host a biofuel blockbuster
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Times (UK): Grimsby or Hollywood? For most, it's not much of a choice. Tim Levy is the exception. As head of Future Capital Partners, a Mayfair investment firm, he has spent the past decade lining up financing for more than 300 films, including blockbusters such as Iron Man 2 and The Bourne Ultimatum. Today he is excited about a vacant lot in the gritty Lincolnshire port. Levy wants to build a refinery there that will turn wheat into petrol. The plant, he argues, will be a boon to British ...
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Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Water Conserve: Water Conservation RSS Newsfeed
"Water Conserve" is a Water Conservation Portal and Internet Search Tool that provides access to reviewed water conservation news and information
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Water Woes Fall on Women's Shoulders
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Inter Press Service: As a wife of a rice farmer and mother of two children aged nine and two, Sanjeevani Bandara's days are packed with chores. Yet while she used to be able to keep up with all she has to do in a day, this Sri Lankan mother now finds herself struggling to accomplish even the most basic tasks. Blame it on the weather, which has been causing water shortages that force Bandara to spend more and more time fetching water for her family, farther away from home. While the volume of annual ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Gardeners urged to stop using peat-based compost
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Independent (UK): The star of the BBC's Gardeners' World has been drafted in by the Government as they try to persuade the public to stop using peat compost. Ministers hope that Diarmuid Gavin will help them convince gardeners to stop using peat, which is present in almost half of all compost sold by garden centres. Yesterday the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced a new target to phase out the use of peat compost in amateur gardens by 2020 but shied away from imposing a ban, provoking ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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World's nature 'becoming extinct at fastest rate on record', conservationists warn
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Telegraph: Despite hope that nature was fighting back, it appeared that the global wipeout of species was accelerating, they said. Speaking ahead of two next week on the state of British and European wildlife, Simon Stuart, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, admitted that the rate of extinction had not slowed. Previously research has shown that world was currently in the midst of a "sixth great extinction" of species, which was being driven by natural habitat ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Frog in Australia goes from 'extinct' to very, very endangered
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Mongabay: Facing habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and the devastating chytrid fungus, there has been little positive news about amphibians recently. However, a story out of Australia brings a much needed respite from bad news. In 2008 Luke Pearce, a fisheries conservation officer, stumbled on a frog that had been thought to be extinct for over thirty years. Not recorded since the 1970s, Pearce rediscovered the yellow-spotted bell frog (Litoria castanea) on rural Australian farmland in ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Global climate change and biodiversity
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New Nation: Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim, an eminent scientist of Bangladesh and nature lover notes that about 40 per cent of about 44 thousand species of the world are at stake due to climatic and other disasters. Human-induced climate change tends to reduce the genetic diversity of individual species. Again, successful adaptation to climate change may depend to a greater extent on the ability of species to disperse to new areas but this ability is also increasingly impeded by human-induced landscape change. ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Environment Agency debuts map of hydropower hot spots
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Business Green: The Environment Agency will later today release a new map designed to show areas in England and Wales where viable hydropower resources are going untapped. The hydropower opportunities and environmental sensitivities map forms part of a major new report from the agency, which found close to 26,000 locations where a hydropower turbine could generate renewable electricity. The agency said that taken as a whole, these unused sites could generate about three per cent of the UK's ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grab
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Guardian: We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches. The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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California looks to Australia for lessons on water management
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Pasadena Star-News: Over the past decade, Australia has seen its temperatures rise, its reservoirs plummet, and its crops dry up - the result of the country's worst drought in 100 years. The experience rings familiar to California water managers. In response to its crisis, Australia has made a $50 billion government investment in water infrastructure, cut water allocations to farmers by 70 percent, and slashed household water use to a quarter of what is used in Californian homes. And it seems to ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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India: Conserving and restoring moorlands can slow down climate change
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Asian News International: Scientists have stressed that conserving and restoring the moorlands is important because they are some of the rarest habitats in the world, home to extremely rare animals and plants, and can also slow down climate change. Seventy-five per cent of the world's heather moorlands are in the UK. However, pollution, overgrazing and wild fires have damaged large areas. Several organisations in the Peak District National Park in England are trying to restore and conserve the moorland ...
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03/07/2010 02:00 PM
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Malawi: Climate change is changing farming methods
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Inter Press Service: As they slept soundly on the night of Feb. 28, a family of four was killed when their house collapsed over their heads in Malawi's southern district of Chikhwawa. Christopher Ganizani, 27, his wife Grace, 29, and their children Rymon, six, and Christian, who was only nine months old, were buried alive under the rubble of their house, according to Chikhwawa police spokesman Sunday Ngulube. "The house, made of unbaked mud bricks, buckled under the intensity of the heavy rains ...
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Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
"Ocean Conserve" is an Ocean Conservation Portal and Internet Search Tool that provides access to reviewed ocean conservation news and information
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Japan: The Cove makers expose alleged smuggling
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Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent The run-up to the Oscars are a heady time for nominees: a whirlwind of screenings, cocktails, celebrity encounters and, for the makers of this year's prize winning eco-documentary, secret meetings in the parking lot of a sushi restaurant with federal investigators. In an action worthy of the eco-commandos of Greenpeace, the makers of The Cove, an Oscar-winning documentary on Japan's dolphin slaughter, helped break up an ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Australia: New Species of Worm Found in Great Barrier Reef
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LiveScience: Four newly identified worm species, including one that sports an unusual green color, have been found wriggling in the sands of the Great Barrier Reef. The layer of sand that covers the floors of the Earth's oceans is actually home to a large diversity of marine organisms. Enterprising animals can take advantage of the water-filled spaces between sand grains. The newfound creepy crawlies are members of the genus Grania, a group of worms found in marine sands throughout the ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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United States: Coast Guard begins hearing on Texas oil spill
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Associated Press: An 800-foot tanker struggling with poor visibility and strong winds apparently failed to center itself in a narrow waterway off the Gulf of Mexico, possibly contributing to a collision with a tugboat that caused the largest oil spill in Texas in 15 years, according to testimony and evidence presented at a Coast Guard hearing on Tuesday. The tanker pilot's attempts to regain control of the ship by speeding up, pulling an emergency stop and throwing an anchor down at full-speed all ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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'Gribble' marine pest may be key to biofuel breakthrough, say scientists
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Times (UK): A marine pest could be the key to a biofuel breakthrough, say scientists. Gribble, which resemble pink woodlice, plagued seafarers for centuries by boring through the planks of ships and destroying wooden piers. But now environmental scientists are taking a keen interest in the crustaceans. A team of British researchers has learnt that gribble have a gift for digesting wood not seen in any other animal. Enzymes produced by the tiny creatures are able to break down woody ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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West Africa sets out to protect dying mangroves
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Reuters: Salt is precious in poverty-stricken coastal West Africa, but conservation experts say efforts to extract it are laying waste to mangrove swamps, causing erosion and ravaging fish stocks. In Sierra Leone, one of Africa's poorest nations still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war, lawmakers are preparing a bill to join a seven-nation charter to protect the region's mangrove forests. Conservation group Wetlands International says the initiative is essential for West Africa to ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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World's nature 'becoming extinct at fastest rate on record', conservationists warn
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Telegraph: Despite hope that nature was fighting back, it appeared that the global wipeout of species was accelerating, they said. Speaking ahead of two next week on the state of British and European wildlife, Simon Stuart, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, admitted that the rate of extinction had not slowed. Previously research has shown that world was currently in the midst of a "sixth great extinction" of species, which was being driven by natural habitat ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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"Cove" Movie Assails Dolphin Hunt, Gets Oscar Boost
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National Geographic: With The Cove movie winning the 2010 Oscar for best documentary Sunday night, residents of the fishing village made famous in the movie are voicing their disappointment, calling the film inaccurate and intolerant of other cultures. The Cove's makers and distributors counter that the movie won the Oscar because it was well made and worth seeing, and that the Oscar nod highlights people's concerns about the controversial practice at the heart of the movie--dolphin hunting. Every ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Ecologists turn exterminators in the great rat hunt
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Independent (UK): The world's biggest rat-hunt is being mounted to rid a South Atlantic island of the rodents eating their way through millions of endangered seabirds. The first phase of the eradication programme will start next February on South Georgia in the hope of returning the island to its previous state as a globally important breeding site for seabirds. Over the centuriers, the rats arrived on South Georgia off whaling ships and sealers. Since then, their population has grown to several ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Japan: Dolphin cull film 'lies', says Japan
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Independent (UK): Pro-whaling officials have reacted angrily to news that a documentary about a gruesome annual dolphin cull in a remote Japanese fishing town has bagged an Academy Award. The Cove, directed by photographer Louie Psihoyos, won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars on Sunday after winning acclaim from around the world -- except from Japan. Filmed secretly over several months in the whaling town of Taiji, the documentary used hidden cameras and microphones to depict the annual ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Global climate change and biodiversity
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New Nation: Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim, an eminent scientist of Bangladesh and nature lover notes that about 40 per cent of about 44 thousand species of the world are at stake due to climatic and other disasters. Human-induced climate change tends to reduce the genetic diversity of individual species. Again, successful adaptation to climate change may depend to a greater extent on the ability of species to disperse to new areas but this ability is also increasingly impeded by human-induced landscape change. ...
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Rainforest Portal RSS Newsfeed
Rainforest Portal RSS Newsfeed
"Rainforest Portal" is an Internet Search Tool that provides access to reviewed rainforest conservation news and information
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Climate forest deal in sight: Indonesia
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Agence France-Presse: Wealthy and developing nations should be able to seal an agreement this year on deforestation, unlocking a key part of the next treaty on global warming, Indonesian negotiators said Monday. At December's Copenhagen climate summit, six nations pledged a total of 3.5 billion dollars to help developing countries fight the loss of forests, seen as a leading cause of global warming along with industrial pollution. Basah Hernowo, a senior official in Indonesia's forestry ministry, ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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EU faces court challenge over biofuels reports
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Reuters: Four environmental groups have sued the European Union's executive for withholding documents they say will add to a growing dossier of evidence that biofuels harm the environment and push up food prices. The lawsuit, lodged with the EU's General Court, the bloc's second highest court, alleges several violations of European laws on transparency and democracy. But the European Commission countered that the action was premature as it had not formally refused access and had already ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Legal action targets EU biofuel policy
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Business Green: European biofuel developers are facing fresh uncertainty about the future of the industry, after four environmental groups yesterday launched legal action against the European Union, accusing it of withholding evidence that allegedly shows that current biofuel policies harm the environment and push up food prices. The lawsuit, filed on Monday by ClientEarth, Transport & Environment, the European Environmental Bureau and BirdLife International, will result in further investment ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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Wild relatives of crops seen aiding climate fight
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Reuters: Farm experts plan to track down wild relatives of crops such as rice or wheat with traits that make them able to resist global warming in a project costing perhaps $50 million, a leading expert said on Tuesday. "The wild relatives of cultivated crops ... are largely uncollected or conserved in gene banks," said Cary Fowler, head of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust which co-manages a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island north of Norway. "We're at the early stages" ...
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03/09/2010 02:00 PM
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United Kingdom: Gardeners urged to stop using peat-based compost
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Independent (UK): The star of the BBC's Gardeners' World has been drafted in by the Government as they try to persuade the public to stop using peat compost. Ministers hope that Diarmuid Gavin will help them convince gardeners to stop using peat, which is present in almost half of all compost sold by garden centres. Yesterday the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn announced a new target to phase out the use of peat compost in amateur gardens by 2020 but shied away from imposing a ban, provoking ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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West Africa sets out to protect dying mangroves
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Reuters: Salt is precious in poverty-stricken coastal West Africa, but conservation experts say efforts to extract it are laying waste to mangrove swamps, causing erosion and ravaging fish stocks. In Sierra Leone, one of Africa's poorest nations still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war, lawmakers are preparing a bill to join a seven-nation charter to protect the region's mangrove forests. Conservation group Wetlands International says the initiative is essential for West Africa to ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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World's nature 'becoming extinct at fastest rate on record', conservationists warn
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Telegraph: Despite hope that nature was fighting back, it appeared that the global wipeout of species was accelerating, they said. Speaking ahead of two next week on the state of British and European wildlife, Simon Stuart, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, admitted that the rate of extinction had not slowed. Previously research has shown that world was currently in the midst of a "sixth great extinction" of species, which was being driven by natural habitat ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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World's Pall of Black Carbon Can Be Eased With New Stoves
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Yale Environment 360: With a single, concerted initiative, says Lakshman Guruswami, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming -- and all at a surprisingly small cost. "If we could supply cheap, clean-burning cook stoves to the large portion of the world that burns biomass," says Guruswami, a Sri Lankan-born professor of international law at the University of Colorado, "we could address a significant ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Congo group accuses soldiers of killing animals
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Associated Press: An environmental group is accusing Congolese soldiers of killing more rare wild animals in a national park in Congo's volatile east. Bantu Lukambo of Innovation for Development and Environmental Protection said Monday soldiers killed the animals in Virunga National Park in February while stationed in the area to fight rebels. Their toll includes seven hippos, two elephants, two chimpanzees and four baboons. The report also accused soldiers of illegal fishing and logging. Army ...
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03/08/2010 02:00 PM
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Ghost orchid comes back from extinction
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Guardian: Three species thought to be extinct have been found again, to the delight of conservationists. In the UK, the rare ghost orchid, declared extinct in this country just last year, has been found in England, and a caddisfly – a small flying insect – last seen more than a century ago has been discovered again in Scotland. On the global stage the yellow-spotted bell frog, presumed "possibly extinct" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, has been seen on a creek-bed in ...
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