By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk

Yet another paradise lost?

Prime Minister Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea is ruling as a Mugabe like thug bent upon becoming a tin-pot dictator. Once a great man that led his country to independence, Mr. Somare is now using his “Grand Chief” status for corrupt personal, family and tribal gains – illegally and immorally allocating huge swathes of his great nation’s forest and marine resources without landowners’ prior and informed consent. On the bidding of Somare’s increasingly despotic and erratic leadership, Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) natural assets are being sold off to invading Asian business interests – destroying rainforest, ocean, water and land – as well as the resource and ecosystem rich nation’s future development potential. Will one man – big man Sana or not – single-handedly destroy Earth’s third largest remaining contiguous old rainforest expanses for personal gain?

Nowhere is this more evident than in Madang Province, PNG, which contains some of Earth’s last remaining mostly intact tropical and marine ecosystems in the world. The “Jewel of the South Pacific” includes large ancient rainforest tracts, huge tuna and other fisheries, and barely explored mineral deposits; as well as beautiful, loving and peaceful people. Madang’s rainforests and oceans feed and house all its citizens, regulate national and regional climatic patterns, and make the Earth habitable by providing global ecosystem services. As Somare flits about in his new high-end private jet (who paid for that?) signing illicit business deals with Asian cartels and otherwise stealing Madang and the nation’s resources (including attempts to corner nascent carbon markets), Madang and PNG’s infrastructure including schools, hospitals, police and roads are in shambles.

Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Ode to Madang" »

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By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk

Shared survival requires powering down, going back to the land, and ecological resistance.

The human family faces imminent and (Copenhagen would suggest) inevitable collapse of the biosphere – the thin layer of life upon an otherwise lifeless planet – that makes Earth habitable. Marshes and rivers and forests and fish are far more than resources – they and all natural ecosystems are a necessity for humanity’s existence upon Earth. A few centuries of historically unprecedented explosion in human numbers and surging, albeit inequitable, consumption and resultant resource use, ecosystem destruction and pollution; is needlessly destroying being for all living things. Revolutionary action such as ending coal use, reforming industrial agriculture and protecting and restoring old forests and other natural ecosystems, is a requirement for the continuation of shared human being.

Earth is threatened by far more than a changing atmosphere causing climate change. Cumulative ecosystem destruction – not only in climate, but also water, forests, oceans, farmland, soils and toxics -- in the name of “progress” and “development” -- threatens each of us, our families and communities, as well as the Earth System in total and all her creatures. Any chance of achieving global ecological sustainability depends urgently upon shifting concerns regarding climate change to more sufficiently transform ourselves and society to more broadly resist global ecological change. Global ecological, social and economic collapse may be inevitable, but its severity, duration and likelihood of recovery are being determined by us now. It does not look good as the environmental movement has been lacking in its overall vision, ambition and implementation.

Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Resisting Global Ecological Change" »

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By Ecological Internet's Climate Ark Climate Change Portal

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

Securing world food security while maintaining operable forests, global climate, water, ocean and terrestrial ecosystems – and human rights, justice and equity – is the biggest challenge facing humanity. Water and food are the next bubbles to burst -- expect severe shortages of both in the 2010s. It is long past time to get back to the land through protecting and restoring old forests and organic permaculture farming. Our survival depends upon being with land, collecting water, letting forests age and growing food.

Continue reading "ALERT! More Old Forests, Less Industrial Agriculture, Key to Climate, Food and Water" »

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By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal and ClimateArk

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Sir Michael Somare -- Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Prime Minister -- jets soon to Copenhagen pledging to protect the country’s rainforests in exchange for REDD carbon money. Yet back home he has left a long list of shameful and corrupt rainforest/climate policies. As Copenhagen and REDD talks start, Somare pals Rimbunan Hijau of Malaysia continue logging in Ramu, Madang, despite a court order demanding they stop. Corruption, human rights abuses, and ecological devastation have no place in REDD or Papua New Guinea.

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=png_redd_logging

PICTURES OF RIMBUNAN HIJAU’S DESTRUCTION IN RAMU, MADANG:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=158287&id=84943913664

Continue reading "ALERT! PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Grand Chief "Carbon Cowboy" Off Soon in New Private Jet to Sell Landowners' Rainforest Carbon" »

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By Ecological Internet's Climate Ark Climate Change Portal

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

Copenhagen climate talks [search] must not provide Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) carbon market funds for old, natural forest logging, or for conversion of natural or semi-natural forests and other ecosystems to plantations. Ending deforestation and degradation of old and relatively ecologically intact primary and old growth forest ecosystems, and the ecological restoration of late-successional old growth forests, are keystone responses to maintaining the global climatic system. TAKE ACTION!

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Loggers and wildlife traders continue to violate Madagascar's biodiversity [search] rich rainforests including protected areas. In March of this year controversy surrounding leasing of agricultural land resulted in a military coup. In the chaos that ensued, armed gangs funded by Chinese traders entered Madagascar’s Marojejy and Masoala National Parks, two world-renowned World Heritage Sites, and logged rosewood, ebonies, and other valuable hardwoods. NGOs operating in Madagascar report continued armed, open and organized plundering of precious wood from several natural forests, including these parks.

TAKE ACTION!

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From Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)

Contact:
Tim Doody: rainforestsny@gmail.com
Simon Counsell: info@fsc-watch.org
Dr. Glen Barry: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

PHOTOS AND VIDEO OF BANNER:
http://RFNY.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32461153@N08/

September 24th, New York: This morning, environmental activists unfurled a 35-foot banner blocking the iconic view of 10th Avenue from the High Line park to protest the Amazon wood [search] used in the park for bleachers, benches and decking. The banner read, "High Crime on the High Line! FSC Lies: Amazon Wood Is Not Sustainable [search]!"

Two New York City-based groups, Rainforest Relief and New York Climate Action Group, coordinated the banner action to confront the "First International FSC Friday," an event held on September 25th by the Forest Stewardship Council to promote their certification scheme.

According to Friends of the High Line's website, the tropical hardwood used throughout the High Line was certified by FSC-accredited agencies. The wood, called ipê, originates from primary Amazon forests in Brazil and Peru. Ipê trees are typically 250 to 1,000 years old and grow an average of one or two trees per acre.

Continue reading "New York City Activists Unfurl 35-foot Banner on High Line to Protest Park's Use of FSC-Certified Amazon Wood" »

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By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk

A call for reluctant Earth revolutionaries to unite and slay the economic growth machine consuming ecological being.

A disease is ravaging Earth as ever more people, consume ever more, destroying natural ecosystems that are our shared habitat. In a few short centuries the violent, expansionist and deeply ecologically unsustainable Western mindset has become virtually universally accepted. The meaning of life is more, ever more of everything, at the expense of a finite biosphere. The emptiness of such a vacuous worldview is revealed through changing climate, devastating human inequities and an irredeemably corrupt economic system.

More than just a climate crisis, humanity is facing profound over-population and injustice that are spurring dozens of inter-related ecological and social crises. Billions suffer as their basic human needs go unmet, while billions more gorge themselves. Forests, prairies, streams, rivers, estuaries, wetlands, lakes, soil, oceans, air and all the rest are all life's flesh and blood. Humanity, Earth and kindred species have entered the late stage condition of ecological overshoot -- whereby our cumulative demands upon ecosystems exceed their life-giving capacity and cause them to collapse.

We are eating creation. Hardly anyone is thinking or acting at the necessary scale to avert global ecological Armageddon. Market based solutions are pervasive with corruption and inequity. Nothing we do is going to maintain an affluent life, as it is now for some. Widespread economic decline will certainly accompany abrupt climate change and global ecosystem collapse; indeed, it has begun. If existing political systems are unable to deal with the inevitable collapse of the growth machine, at the same time as pursuing rigorous environmental policy-making, then new political structures will be necessary.

Continue reading "EARTH MEANDERS: Ecological Overshoot: Climate, Inequity and Corruption" »

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By Rainforest Rescue with Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal with

TAKE ACTION!

Malaysia is the world's leading rainforest destroying nation. Insist Malaysian authorities respect native customary land rights and boundaries of Penan's last remaining ancestral rainforest reserves; halt rainforest destruction in Sarawak for oil palm, pulp plantations and hydro-electric dams; and ensure rainforest destruction and abuse of indigenous rights by Malaysian companies end globally.

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=malaysia_penan_blockade

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By Rainforest Rescue with Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal with

TAKE ACTION!

The fact notorious illegal loggers Samling of Malaysia [search]; who have devastated rainforests globally including those of the Penan, are surreptitiously in contention for Liberian logging [search] contracts illustrates, despite decades of failed reform efforts locally and internationally, that the global industrial tropical timber logging industry remains irredeemably corrupt. There is no evidence first time industrial logging of primary forests is ever ecologically sustainable or reduces poverty. Please call upon Liberian President to pursue development based upon standing rainforests, and reject entirely the resumption of industrial logging. NOTE: After sending this protest you are forwarded to several crucial ongoing alerts, which we ask you to please send as well

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=liberia_logging_resume

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