forests/climate change

Brazilian Court Suspends Work on Mega-Dam Set To Destroy Rainforest, Indigenous Peoples

August 16, 2012 by Christine

Something to celebrate! For decades, the Brazilian government has had plans to build the third-largest hydroelectric dam in the world in Amazonia. This mega-project would drown large areas of pristine rainforest and displace the resident indigenous peoples from their homelands. After protests by the affected tribes supported by a worldwide campaign appealing to the parliament and the new President, Dilma Rousseff, seemed to have no effect, now a Brazilian federal judge has suspended the dam’s construction. It’s a victory to rejoice over, but a not definite decision and no reason to let up the pressure to stop this monster project based on 20th century thinking.

“The world must know what is happening here, they must perceive how destroying forests and indigenous people destroys the entire world.”
— KAYAPÓ INDIGENOUS LEADERS

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFWngYRIbd4&feature=player_embedded]

Links:

Belo Monte Dam Suspended by Brazilian Appeals Court

Amazon Watch.org

Survival International.org

Civilization Isn’t That Civilized

August 9, 2011 by CPP

Those of you who follow this blog will know that my family and I spent last week canoeing in the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in northern Ontario’s boreal forest. It seems that the world has done as well (or poorly) as usual without my daily posts here, and I confess to some reluctance about getting back into cyberspace. It’s a world which can very easily eat up the minutes in a day until minutes turn into hours which turn into whole days lost at my desk.

Life in the wilderness was physically challenging (we did a total of 55 portages over our seven days of canoeing) but spiritually refreshing. We canoed routes that had been traveled since time before memory by the First Peoples of this continent. We saw drawings they left behind, amazingly still visible on the rock face rising out of the lake. We saw turtles, otters, loons, kingfishers, moose, and even a bear. We gratefully ate fish that had been plucked from the lake an hour earlier.

Now we’re back, and headlines blare out about the intransigence in Washington, the stock market plunging, the Harper government slashing nearly 800 jobs at Environment Canada, devastating drought in Texas, riots in London, famine in the Horn of Africa, and the list goes on…

Civilization just doesn’t seem that civilized after a week in the wilderness. I don’t know the whole answer to how one stays sane and hopeful in an insane and often cruel world. But I do know that I just had the good fortune to spend a week canoeing in our beautiful Canadian wilderness, and I will cherish it. I think it might be that cherishing the people and experiences, even uncomfortable ones, in one’s life is part of the answer. Now I’m off to do just that.

Woodland Caribou Park, August 2011:

[slideshow]

Nobel Laureate: It is the People Who Must Stand Up For the Environment, Make Their Leaders Change

July 22, 2011 by CPP

Fridays are the days I usually focus on good news. I think the best news around these days is that Rupert Murdoch and his right-wing, democracy-corrupting News International is finally being subjected to the harsh light of public and criminal investigation. Apparently last week, Murdoch’s media empire lost seven billion dollars worth of value in one day. Now that’s good news!

In another good news story, it turns out that forests play an even larger role in the Earth’s climate system than previously suspected. According to a new study published in Science last week, this raises more concern about the risks from deforestation but also holds out hope for the potential gains from regrowth.

Werner Kurz, a scientist with Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service who co-authored the paper, said the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by forests is “good news” and reinforces what scientists had previously estimated — that forests are the biggest carbon sinks among land ecosystems.

“Right now, forests are helping,” he said, “but whether or not they will continue to help in the future will depend on the effect of human activities and climate change on the forest.” Read the full article on CBC.ca.

So if we buckle down and seriously address the issues of deforestation and reforestation across the globe – in the Amazon as well as in my backyard, the boreal forest – this could be a huge step towards stabilizing the world’s climate system. And who better to get inspiration from when talking about planting trees to heal the earth, than Wangari Maathai? Ms. Maathai is the Kenyan woman who started the Green Belt Movement which taught the women in her country how to plant trees, and who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work. Since 1977, GBM communities have planted over 45 million trees in Kenya to increase national forest cover and restore essential ecosystems. Here are some clips from Taking Root, a documentary by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater which tells Maathai’s story, “whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5GX6JktJZg]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzikL5MJWCg&feature=related]

Here’s a quote from Wangari Maathai to take into the weekend with you:

“It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.”

“The world must know what is happening here, they must perceive how destroying forests and indigenous people destroys the entire world.” — KAYAPÓ INDIGENOUS LEADERS

“The world must know what is happening here, they must perceive how destroying forests and indigenous people destroys the entire world.”
— KAYAPÓ INDIGENOUS LEADERS