Please support EI's proven Internet-based global advocacy to achieve ecological science-based ecosystem protection and restoration - http://www.climateark.org/shared/donate/

Dear Earth colleagues,

I have just come from the rainforest, and things are not looking good. Old forests continue to needlessly fall, even as abrupt runaway climate change appears imminent. Today Ecological Internet launches our biannual fund-raiser to support our ten year old unique brand of Internet mediated global ecological advocacy to address the twin crises of forest degradation and climate change.

Simply no one protects old forests to stabilize climate like Ecological Internet. Besides our long-running eco-portals with search engine, action alerts and blog; we are currently residing in Papua New Guinea, bringing our work straight to the rainforests, and working with local peoples and groups. Please, for this work to continue, we need your help with a tax-deductible donation now at: http://www.climateark.org/shared/donate/ . And it will be doubled with a matching grant!

Continue reading "Helping Old Forests Stabilize Climate 2009: Ecological Internet $75,000 Year-End Fund-Raiser" »

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By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

An Open Letter signed by more than 80 organizations from 31 countries was delivered yesterday to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) [search] and to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) co-initiator of the initiative. In the letter, they are urged to end the “greenwashing” and certification of palm oil plantations as being “sustainable”.

According to the Open Letter, palm oil companies certified by the RSPO are directly responsible for much social and environmental damage: dislocation of local populations’ livelihoods, destruction of rainforests and peat lands, pollution of soils and water, and contribution to global warming. These are the reasons why “palm oil monoculture[s] are not and can never be sustainable and ‘certification’ serves as a means of perpetuating and expanding this destructive industry”.

Continue reading "RELEASE: WWF Confronted for Rainforest "Greenwashing" of "Sustainable" Palm Oil" »

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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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By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

(EARTH) -- Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has unexpectedly pulled out of nearly completed secret negotiations with Ecological Internet to work jointly to reform the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to stop certifying as environmentally acceptable the first time logging of old forests [1]. After fifteen years of FSC membership, RAN still cannot say how much first time industrial primary and old growth forest logging FSC has certified as "well-managed" while implying environmental sustainability (no one including FSC board members can, or at least they are not talking). Estimates place it as high as 60 million hectares of old forests having been cleared with FSC certification for such necessities as toilet paper and lawn furniture, with an equal amount imminently threatened.

RAN's tropical rainforest campaign has collapsed into irrelevancy. For several years there has been no activity other than working on oil palm, fund-raising and throwing lavish parties. A year ago, after two years of protests and threats to disrupt their REVEL celebrity studded fund-raiser, they pledged to reinvigorate their rainforest campaign, starting with writing to FSC to find out just how much old forests they are destroying. Apparently being an FSC member has few benefits, as no response has been received. By supporting FSC, Rainforest Action Network is greenwashing rainforest destruction globally. FSC is only marginally better than competing industry certification schemes in that it depends upon old forest logging to meet market demand for throw-away consumer items. Old forest logging must end.

Continue reading "RELEASE: deRANged II The Sequel -- Rainforest Action Network Endangers World's Rainforests" »

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Eco-Forestry Forum, a leading Papua New Guinea (PNG) NGO, makes major new charges of continued corruption in the establishment of carbon projects and markets in PNG in their newspaper advertisement (pdf, text below). Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) [search], or sometimes called Avoided Deforestation -- paying for the full protection of standing rainforests -- is an excellent idea that is going badly wrong. The EFF has tried to print the advertisement in the two PNG national papers but were suspiciously refused.

This was not surprising for "The National", the mouthpiece of the PNG timber industry, and owned by the largest foreign logger. But why is it that The Nature Conservancy (TNC), AusAID and the Government of PNG have conspired to block the advertisement in the Post-Courier as well, the other major national daily newspaper, as has been alleged? The conflicts of interest herein detailed show clearly that most carbon market players in PNG have interests other than protecting rainforests and reducing carbon in the atmosphere.

Continue reading "Eco-Forestry Forum Calls for Protection from Continuing Papua New Guinea Rainforest Carbon Scams " »

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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 Ecological Internet's Climate Ark Climate Change Portal

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!

Urge all Earth's citizens and tribes to pursue a 10:10 pledge, protect and restore all old forests, and pursue other ambitious, short-term actions -- both personally and at Copenhagen -- as a start to avert abrupt climate change and global ecological collapse. Stewardship Revolution starts here as global ecological sustainability depends upon dramatically reducing greenhouse emissions in the short term. TAKE ACTION!

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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

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Ombudsman report on 20 years of corrupt IFC, World Bank Group lending to the Indonesian oil palm industry casts doubt on Bank's fitness to manage international forest carbon funds that may emerge at Copenhagen climate talks. It is time for the World Bank to end finance of oil palm, sustainable forest management, paper pulp and other industrial rainforest developments known to be the root causes of deforestation, degradation and climate change. The Bank must permanently end financial support for these industrial developments impacting primary rainforests, or it is the wrong entity to administer forest carbon monies.

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW!

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