The following ten stories, organized by region, made international headlines from April 27 to May 4 for their impact on the environment and society. For more stories that changed the world, see our archive, here.
North American Environmental News
CANADA — Ontario Bans Lawn and Garden Pesticides
Canada has proven once again that it is way ahead of the rest of world with its progressive government. Ontario has banned the use and sale of lawn and garden pesticides for homeowners. Quebec instituted a similar ban on 20 some pesticide products back in 2006.
The new ban is set to take effect by spring of 2009. Home Depot has already agreed to stop selling the pesticides by the end of 2008! This is a huge victory for anti-toxic supporters all over the continent. If only someone in the United States government could take such affirmative action we could all be spared. Ontario will basically phase out some 80 different chemicals and over 300 products that contain them.
Continue reading this article at the Environmental Blog. Join the discussion about this article at Care2.
South American Environmental News
CHILE — Thousands evacuated as Chile volcano spews ash
Chilean authorities were evacuating the last of thousands of residents from the vicinity of a volcano in southern Chile on Saturday, as it continued to spew fine ash for a second day after a surprise eruption.
More than 4,000 people have been evacuated from the Patagonian town of Chaiten and its surroundings since Friday, many by boat to the town of Castro on the island of Chiloe, slightly further north and Puerto Montt on the mainland.
Continue reading this article at Reuters. Join the discussion of this article at Stumble Upon. Via ENN.
BELIZE — Environmental NGO’s partner to promote organic cacao and ‘Race against Fire’
Fauna and Flaura Insternational’s partner in Belize, the Ya’axché Conservation Trust (YCT), recently held several educational events to support their efforts to conserve the Golden Stream Watershed, one of Central America’s most important stretches of rainforest.
YCT’s agroforestry training programme is designed to encourage local people to manage their forests in an eco-friendly way and consider options for more sustainable livelihoods. In the recent events, men and women from three rural Maya communities in Belize learned new skills in harvesting, fermenting, and drying organic cacao, in a bid to lessen their impact on the fragile forest habitat.
Continue reading this article at Fauna and Flora International. Join the discussion of this article at Care2.
CUBA — Cuba puts first computers on sale to the public
Cubans are getting wired. The island’s communist government put desktop computers on sale to the public for the first time Friday, ending a ban on PC sales as another despised restriction on daily life fell away under new President Raul Castro.
A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780 (euro505). While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.
Continue reading this article at the Chicago Tribune. Join the discussion of this article at Digg.
Asian Environmental News
IRAQ — Contractors Gone Wild
Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption among private contractors in Iraq are nothing new; if anything, tales of cronyism, over-billing, and embezzlement have become so frequent that our national tolerance for them seems only to have increased as the Iraq War has drawn on. Even so, the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Yet despite its focus on such salacious matters as sex and corruption, the session earned little media attention.
Continue reading this article at Mother Jones. Join the discussion about this article at Digg.
RUSSIA — The World’s Largest & Deepest Lake, 25-million-Years Old, is in Trouble
Already there has been a rise in more common water organisms in the lake—a sight that does not bode well for the lakes original inhabitants.
“We know that Siberia is one of the most rapidly warming regions of the world – the air temperature in Siberia has warmed at a rate that is about twice that of the average global rate of temperature increase. So when we approached this work with the Lake Baikal temperature data, we knew that the lake would have been exposed to a greater ambient temperature increase than lakes in other regions, but I certainly will admit to being surprised that the lake had warmed so rapidly since 1946. Why is it warming so much faster than the air?
Continue reading this article at The Daily Galaxy. Join the discussion of this article at Digg.
INDIA — “TreeCycle” Cyclist To Travel India End-to End For Pledge of 10 Million Trees
In a calorie-burning 3,900-kilometre cycle journey from one end of India to another, a man plans to raise awareness and to gather pledges to plant more trees worldwide. Cycling in the wake of the United Nation Environment Programme’s (UNEP) successful Billion Tree Campaign last year will be Shrenik Rao, creator of the TreeCycle project, CEO of a media company and an avid cyclist.
In partnering up with the UNEP, the aim of the TreeCycle campaign is to raise awareness about global warming and to raise a pledge of 10 million trees for the calories Rao will expend during the cycle ride. Though the project is already on target with pledges from six different continents and walks of life ranging from a few trees to a couple million, they are still looking for more sponsors to publicly support the effort.
Continue reading this article at TreeHugger. Join the discussion about this article at MindBodyGreen.
Oceania Environmental News
PAPAU NEW GUINEA — Papua New Guinea Admits Illegal Logging
As it is prone to do when the donors come a-calling, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government “has admitted its forestry sector is riddled with corruption” [ark] . This occurred during aid talks with the Australian government, and reflects political posturing to access donor funds on the basis of their rainforest’s carbon holding potential. PNG contains the third largest expanse of tropical rainforests [search], though much diminished through years of heavy industrial mismangement.
Sadly there seems to be little acceptance by those pushing avoided deforestation [search] payments that to be effective, this will require an end to industrial logging of primary forests. Astonishingly, while Australia provided donor funds to PNG this week to protect its forests for carbon benefits, Australia continues to log their own primary forests [action]! To pay carbon monies for rainforest protection without ending barbaric first time logging of ancient forests would be meaningless in terms of both biodiversity and climate protection.
Continue reading this article at the Rainforest Portal. Join the discussion of this article at Care2.
European Environmental News
ESTONIA — Estonians scour country for junk in big clean up
Tens of thousands of Estonians scoured fields, streets, forests and riverbanks on Saturday to amass tonnes of rubbish in the Baltic state’s first national clean-up.
Using Google maps from the Internet and Global Positioning technology to locate junk, people collected every kind of garbage from tractor batteries to plastic bottles and paint tins and ferried it, often in their own vehicles, to central dumps.
Continue reading this article at Reuters. Join the discussion about this article at Stumble Upon. Via ENN.
Global Environmental News
Public Bike Programs Surging
A surge in public bicycle rental programs is giving cycling a shot in the arm in a growing number of cities around the world. Copenhagen, Berlin, and other municipalities in Europe have offered public bikes for several years, but Paris took the concept to a new level last year when it made 20,000 bikes available in its inaugural effort. Some 100,000 Parisians are now subscribers.
Barcelona and Lyon have also started programs in the last two years, with thousands of bikes each, and major new initiatives are planned for Rome and London. Smaller efforts have been started in Cordoba, Seville, Vienna, and other cities.
Continue reading this article at the World Watch Institute. Join the discussion of this article at Stumble Upon. Via ENN.
