Earth Island Journal articles from June 2007

Earth Island Journal archives from June 2007

Journalism with a purpose.(From the editor)
June 22, 2007... Ten years ago this June, I moved to San Francisco. I came here for a job (OK--an internship) at The San Francisco Bay Guardian, the city's oldest alternative weekly. It was an exciting opportunity for an aspiring reporter, a chance to practice...

Not so sweet.(AFRICA)(Ugandan cabinet officials against sugarcane plantation in rainforest)
June 22, 2007... Members of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's own political party are opposing his plan to raze a swath of rainforest for a sugarcane plantation. A Ugandan development company called the Mehta Group is proposing to cut down some 17,540...

Feed the birds.(AFRICA)(campaign to restore forests around Lake Nakuru)
June 22, 2007... During the 1990s, people living along Lake Nakuru in Kenya's scenic Rift Valley relentlessly cut down the forests lining the lake, part of a slash-and-burn campaign to make way for farmland. But when the trees disappeared, the area's rainfall...

Nuke Africa?(AFRICA)(nuclear power generation)
June 22, 2007... Southern Africa is facing power shortages caused by droughts that have lowered water levels in the dams that power hydroelectric stations, crippling the region's economic growth. The resulting power shortages are slowing investment and...

Making waves.(ASIA)
June 22, 2007... Scientists had predicted that the Aral Sea would totally disappear by the year 2020. Now, against all odds, it looks like restoration efforts have started the sea on a dramatic comeback. Over the past 40 years, the Aral, located between...

Water war.(ASIA)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Thousands of Chinese villagers clashed with police in April over access to irrigation water, leading to at least one death and five injuries. Authorities used water cannons and tear gas to break up an angry protest in the village of Bomei...

Wonder where the lions are?(ASIA)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Hundreds of new guards and closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be used to protect rare Asiatic lions threatened by poachers and villagers. The government of Gujarat, the location of India's Gir Wildlife Sanctuary, set up an Asiatic Lion...

Gandhian advice.(ASIA)
June 22, 2007... Maneka Gandhi, the former environment minister of India, says that India has a long way to go before it must cut back on its energy use. While criticizing the US for not joining the Kyoto protocol, Gandh says that India does not have to reduce...

Dump the dump.(ASIA)(India)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... In March, hundreds of residents of Gummidipoondi, India and surrounding villages occupied the proposed site of a landfill that would be used for dumping 35,000 tons of hazardous industrial wastes. The villagers were opposing the project's...

Tread lightly.(EUROPE)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... According to a recent Stockholm Environment Institute study, the Findhorn Foundation's ecovillage in Moray, Scotland has recorded the lowest ecological footprint ever seen in the developed world. The results clearly demonstrate that it is...

Divided on the dam.(EUROPE)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... The Brandenburg Gate, which once separated East and West Berlin, again stood as a dividing point in March; environmental and human rights activists demonstrated at the landmark to oppose the German government's plans to fund construction of the...

Recharge or recycle.(NORTH AMERICA)
June 22, 2007... Environment Canada finds that Canadians recycle only about two percent of their batteries, which means that thousands of tons of battery waste is ending up in landfills. In recent years, the number of batteries sent to landfills has...

Forests (unfortunately) expanding.(NORTH AMERICA)
June 22, 2007... Among environmentalists, an increase in trees is usually reason for celebration. But the surprisingly fast expansion of northern Canada's boreal forests is cause for concern, as the forest growth is an indication of climate change's ecological...

Minefield.(NORTH AMERICA)(permit for uranium exploration in Black Hills region blocked by South Dakota state circuit court judge)
June 22, 2007... A South Dakota state circuit court judge has blocked a uranium exploration permit that would have allowed a Canadian mining firm to drill exploratory wells in a region of the Black Hills held sacred by Native Americans. The judge sent the...

Cold comfort.(OCEANIA)
June 22, 2007... With climate change making the planet increasingly hot, perhaps the fashionable getaway of the future will be to icy landscapes instead of tropical resorts. That could be one of the conclusions of the sharp increase in tourism to...

Diabolical cancer.(OCEANIA)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Tasmanian devils may soon be relocated to Maria Island near Australia to avert their extinction by a contagious cancer. "The path to extinction is looking pretty certain on Tasmania," said William Karesh of the New York-based Wildlife...

Saying no to soy.(SOUTH AMERICA)(protecting Amazon rainforest)
June 22, 2007... In March, the Brazilian government closed a large soy processing and shipping facility in the Amazon rainforest because the plant did not complete an environmental impact assessment. The closure of the plant, which is owned by agribusiness...

President rails against Chevron.(SOUTH AMERICA)(Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador)
June 22, 2007... No, that's not a headline from The Onion. The president in question is Rafael Correa, the leftist leader of Ecuador, who in April endorsed a long-standing legal battle against ChevronTexaco when he lashed out at the oil giant for failing to...

Safe food and fertilizer.(Earth Island News)
June 22, 2007... Remember when cancer was a disease that very few people contracted? Or when the outcome of a pregnancy, was almost certainly a healthy baby? In 1985, six months after the birth of my daughter, my father died of kidney cancer. Cancer was...

International Marine Mammal Project.(Earth Island news)
June 22, 2007... Spreading the news ECO, the IMMP-edited daily newsletter, returned to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in May. ECO represents the voice of the whales and the conservation community at IWC meetings, where NGOs are not allowed to...

UniversitArea Protegida (UAP).(Earth Island news)
June 22, 2007... The Tisey-Estanzuela natural reserve in northern Nicaragua is one of the few areas in the country where resources are managed by both the government and local residents. The reserve is home to eight agriculture-based communities. The key to a...

Brower Youth Awards.(Earth Island news)
June 22, 2007... Since 2000, Earth Island Institute's Brower Youth Awards (BYA) has recognized and supported 43 young leaders for their important work in conservation, preservation, and restoration. The former BYA recipients are continuing their...

The Fiji Organic Project.(Earth Island news)
June 22, 2007... It's a big deal when you get the Minister of Finance, the person holding the purse strings for the entire country, to open a meeting. It's an even bigger deal to have him announce that the country's sugar industry, the backbone of the national...

Eco Tipping Points: how a vicious cycle can become virtuous.(Thailand's socio-economic status)
June 22, 2007... The cicadas are in full voice on a sultry morning in May as we make our way along a rickety wooden boardwalk that snakes through a community mangrove forest near Thung Dase village in southern Thailand. The mangroves offer welcome shade near a...

Oil and water: the Arctic seas face irreversible damage.
June 22, 2007... In the far reaches of Alaska and Canada, past seemingly endless lichen-covered tundra and pebble-strewn shores, the North American continent dips into one of the world's most extraordinary environments: the Arctic Ocean. Here, untamed seas and...

Restoring salmon nation: demolishing dams on the Klamath River.
June 22, 2007... When telling the story of a river, it is best to start at the source. The story of the Klamath River begins in controversy. In the high desert of central Oregon, marshlands feed the first tributaries in the 15,000-square-mile Klamath watershed....

Building on the land ethic in the 21st century: the loving legacy of Aldo Leopold.(Company overview)
June 22, 2007... At first glance, the relationship between a chicken coop used as a vacation shelter and the multimillion-dollar new Leopold Legacy Center seems obscure. The notion of contiguous philosophies behind two such diverse shelters may be...

Everyone has a story.(interview with Martha Davis of Earth Island Institute )(Interview)
June 22, 2007... Martha Davis laughs when she explains how she was selected from among Earth Island Institute's board members to become the current president. "I was the only one who said 'yes,'" she says. She's joking, of course, but there is also a...

What's killing our pets? The government is failing to adequately inspect the ingredients in pet food.
June 22, 2007... The commercial pet foods industry rakes in billions of dollars annually. In exchange for our dollars, we trust the companies to provide our pets with quality nutrition. The recent pet food recall demonstrated that our trust has been misplaced....

Si Se Puede: Latino organizations focus on the environment.
June 22, 2007... It's hard to pinpoint the moment a movement begins--that instant when the push ceases, momentum takes hold, and a political campaign cascades onward by its own force. With each minor success or major victory, participants pause and ask...

Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill.
June 22, 2007... Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill by Daniel Imhoff. 136 pages, paperback. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007. "What's for dinner?" It's an everyday question, and one that usually carries a straightforward...

Green Green Water.(Movie review)
June 22, 2007... Green Green Water Emergence Pictures, 2006 When New Orleans flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it was called a natural disaster. When South Indian Lake in northern Manitoba flooded as the result of a hydroelectric dam, it was...

What does green mean?(Voices)(Critical essay)
June 22, 2007... The social command and activist mantra "Be Green" is loaded with deceptive connotations. I believe that the establishment of a truly just and sustainable society will require each and every one of us to change our habits and our preferences. On...