Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
A recent documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, advocates leading environmental organizations must address animal agriculture’s massive impacts to forests, water sustainability, and climate change. Also watch Howard Lyman’s documentary, Mad Cowboy.
Reviled by ranchers and hunters, managed through “harvesting” by state wildlife agencies, with ardent conservationists its last hope, the gray wolf has cut a controversial wake in the North American landscape ever since it was reintroduced from Canada in 1995. Watch the film on Earth Focus.
A planned 300-kilometer Nicaraguan canal joining the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans could wreak environmental and cultural ruin, home of the Miskitu and other indigenous groups. Sam Gordon argues that many of the issues and impacts are hidden from public view and should require an independent environmental assessment.
A documentary film, Bear Witness, chronicles the efforts of Canadian Coastal First Nations to protect grizzly bears from sport hunters on the British Columbian coast.
Ecuador abandons a plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation, putting Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. Unable to raise sufficient financing, President Correa plans to move forward with oil drilling in this wild Amazonian region, putting wildlife and willfully uncontacted tribes at risk.
Forest fragmentation and destruction is imperiling the Bornean elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), according to a new paper published in PLoS ONE. Using satellite collars to track the pachyderms for the first time in the Malaysian state of Sabah, scientists found elephants sensitive to habitat fragmentation from palm oil plantations and logging.
What about energy conservation, as well as cogeneration, wind power and cheaper, more–efficient forms of renewable energy? Physicist Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute argues that shifting investment of tens of billions of dollars from nuclear into renewable energy would reduce far more carbon per dollar.