Do something serious for the climate and stop monoculture tree plantations!

Throughout the world millions of people are being affected by the climate crisis. However the Climate Change Convention, a United Nations body set up to take the necessary decisions to save the world from a planetary disaster, has not been able to achieve its basic objectives. Sign an open letter to the Climate Convention to protest against this.
(Start: 03.12.2009)

The Angry Mermaid really needs our support!

Trade and Industry don‘t listen and choose to continue business as usual. Monsanto demands climate subsidy for Roundup Ready soy – supported by WWF and RTRS. Spraying herbicides instead of tilling is supposed to reduce carbon emissions. Nice PR, but without taking all the negative impacts into account. We strongly object to this kind of false climate solutions. For that reason we have nominated Monsanto and the RTRS for the worst Climate Lobby Award in Copenhagen.

Please cast your vote at www.angrymermaid.org

The Orangutan forest rescuers

Palm oil is a cheap industrial commodity and is used in food products of every type including margarine, ice cream, biscuits and washing powder. And increasingly it is found in "biodiesel" fuel made from palm oil, to run our cars and for heating stations. In particular, the rainforests are falling victim to rapidly expanding palm oil plantations in Indonesia. The Orangutans are losing their habitat. Activists from the environmental group Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) in Kalimantan (Borneo) are risking their life to save Orangutans and organize resistance against the destruction of the rainforest by oil palm.

Madagascar's Protected Rainforest Hardwoods Continue to be Selectively Logged

Post-coup illegal log and wildlife trade continues to threaten Madagacar's biodiversity rich rainforest remnants, ecological sustainability and future potential for national advancement. This great nation's precious hardwoods deserve CITES protections, to ensure selective logging of any sort in its primary old forests ends. (Start: 27.10.2009)

Climate activists blockade biomass plant in Port Talbot

Activists from Climate Camp Cymru [1] have blockaded a biomass plant in Port Talbot to protest against plans to produce electricity from imported woodchips.

Two protestors used bicycle locks to close off the plant’s entrance, stopping the hourly 20-tonne deliveries of woodchip needed to keep the power station operating. A large banner on the gates reads “Biomess”. Other activists climbed up the chimney to unfurl a giant banner in Welsh reading “Clean Energy: Dirty Joke”. More..
http://climatecampcymru.org/?p=932

Tropical rainforest purchase in Paraguay

Give a rainforest-certificate to someone. The Chaco jungle in Paraguay is the habitat of many endangered plants and animals like tapir, puma and giant armadillo. Not only the nature is threatened, but the 2,500 indigineous Ayoreo and 16,000 Enxet also. By buying primeval forest in Chaco, Rainforest Rescue wants to prevent the imminent deforestation and ensure the survival of the indigens.
Please help our project. One square meter Chaco jungle hardly costs more than 1 Cent!

Palm oil monocultures will never be sustainable

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, between 2-4th November. Organisations: please, sign on an Open Letter against oil palm expansion and greenwashing. To sign on, send a short email to: unsustainablepalmoil@gmail.com

Protest against irresponsible soy - Vote against climate subsidy for Monsanto

Together with Toxic Soy, we sent 10.500 mails to the Dutch Government. This way we give ‘responsible’ soy the bad name it deserves. The Dutch Ministers Verburg and Koenders replied that they realise the RTRS has a long way to go, but they do see progress and keep supporting it. They don‘t want to accept that growing (GM) crops with massive use of herbicides can never be responsible. Soy export from South-America as animal feed for pigs and poultry in Europe can in itself never be responsible. Real solutions can be found in growing animal feed in Europe, strongy reducing the meat-industry and supporting the affected communities.

New report: Soy and Agribusiness Expansion in Northwest Argentina - Legalized deforestation and community resistance

A new report has been launched titled “Soy and Agribusiness Expansion in Northwest Argentina – Legalized deforestation and community resistance. The cases of the Wichí communities of the Itiyuro River Basin and Misión Chaqueña, the Creole families of the Dorado River Basin and the Guaraní communities of El Talar”. The report is published by CAPOMA (Argentina), La Soja Mata and Chaya Comunicación (Argentina), with the support of: BASE Investigaciones Sociales (Paraguay)

New report about biochar in Africa

“Biochar” – the seductive solution for carbon sequestration, soil fertilisation and development. This report by the African Biodiversity Network, Gaia Foundation and Biofuelwatch exposes the real situation in Africa, the risk of land-grabbing on a scale that dwarfs current land-grabs for agrofuels and agrcultural investment.

www.gaiafoundation.org/documents/Biochar%20Africa%20briefing.pdf

Planned cellulose factory puts Tasmanian Devil at risk of extinction

The Tasmanian Devil could suffer the same fate as the Tasmanian Tiger, which died out in 1936. The Austrian industrial plant builder Andritz is to build one of the world's largest cellulose factories in Tasmania, Australia, for the Gunns hardwood and softwood forest products corporation, Australia's largest in the field. The huge industrial project endangers some 200,000 hectares of old growth forest. And as the forest disappears, so could the unique Tasmanian Devil, the biggest carnivorous marsupial. (Start: 30.09.2009)