the late environmentalist, author, & philosopher
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*UPDATE* 18th April 2013. Kiwi release in Northland Last weekend 14 kiwi were released in an attempt to restore the endangered bird to the New Zealand mainland in Marunui. Read more here. The Marunui Conservation project in Auckland, New Zealand, is a successful example of a private initiative in conservation, and a model program for [...]
*UPDATE* 22nd August 2012. Arctic sea ice—both by area and volume—is set to reach record lows this year and, if predictions are correct, will be completely absent during the summer from around 2015 onwards. Some climatologists believe that this catastrophic reduction in Arctic ice-cover is directly responsible for the extreme weather being experienced in the [...]
*UPDATE* 15th August 2012. Court halts work on Belo Monte dam A high-level court yesterday suspended construction of the controversial Belo Monte dam project on the Amazon’s Xingu River, citing overwhelming evidence that indigenous people had not been properly consulted prior to government approval of the project. [. . . MORE . . .] Learn [...]
International Rivers explains the problems associated with a series of large dams planned on Chile’s Pascua and Baker Rivers. Chile recently approved the building of a series of large dam complexes on the Pascua and Baker Rivers amidst one of the last remaining pristine wildernesses on Earth. Further permission for a 1900 kilometer transmission line [...]
If completed, the Gilgel Gibe series of dams on Ethiopia’s Omo River will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric installation. Planned to comprise a series of 5 cascading hydro-dams, the World Bank has provoked controversy by providing the credit to build a thousand kilometer transmission line from the dams to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. This latest decision [...]
RapNews bring us their latest musings on what it’s all about (above); in particular: Man’s quest for ultimate knowledge. But is this the kind of knowledge that we really need? Edward Goldsmith suggests not, and shows how Science has become a kind of quasi-religious cult, misdirecting our attentions away from the knowledge and wisdom that [...]
The Prince of Wales addresses the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) being held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week. In his address, The Prince of Wales argues for an integrated multidisciplinary approach towards our understanding of the current global crises and in our implementation of possible solutions for them (click the [...]
Seeds of Freedom charts the story of seeds from their root at the heart of traditional, diversity-rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity used to monopolise the global food system. The film highlights the extent to which the industrial agricultural system, and genetically modified seeds (GMO) in particular, has [...]
Tercentenary gates unveiled at Richmond Park Richmond Park has unveiled a new set of gates—the St Paul’s Cathedral tercentenary gates—which take pride of place at the entrance to Sidmouth Woods and frame the park’s famous view across the capital. The two words on the gate—The Way—is an epitaph to Edward Goldsmith, author of the book [...]
In the early years of its publication, The Ecologist came with the subtitle “Journal of the Post Industrial Age”. Its message—that society needed to begin voluntarily de-industrialising if it was to avoid global catastrophe in the century ahead, a disaster that would mean de-industrialisation by default—with all the suffering that would entail. The seminal Blueprint [...]
In this new film, Alan Ereira returns to the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Columbia, 20 years on from his first visit,* which opened the world to this lost pre-Columbian civilisation and its message that we (“the Younger Brothers”) are set on a course of global self-destruction. This time they lead [...]
Based on the book A Users Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: and how to save it, Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed explains how systemic failings intrinsic to industrial society are converging inexorably towards its collapse before the century’s end. Rather than attempting to change the current industrial system—which is the root of the problem—policy makers [...]
As a result of the peak in global crude oil production and the subsequent explosion in oil prices, the world’s largest and dirtiest industrial project is racing ahead in the Canadian heartland of Alberta. The oil industry is now heavily engaged in excavating the vast, and previously uneconomic, tar sands sitting under the Athabasca boreal [...]
At the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Durban, South Africa in December, the representatives of Indigenous Peoples from around the world made their own Declaration (full text in English below—sourced from Forest Peoples). See also the Proposal for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth made at the World People’s [...]
Excerpt from Globalisation and Maori. TKM Productions, Aotearoa 1998. For tens of thousands of years tribal societies around the world achieved the universal ideal of a sustainable balance between individual, community, and environment. These advanced and highly diverse cultures maintained stable and fulfilling societies characterised by small, human-scale communities, low-impact technologies, sustainable resource management, successful [...]
The construction of the Belo Monte dam is one of the most controversial developments ever seen in Brazilian history. The issues raised by its construction go beyond environmental, cultural and social impacts. The approval of a gigantic development in the heart of the Amazon forest, among indigenous lands, has raised alarming concerns. The independent film [...]
