TODAY´S INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR BIODIVERSITY!

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GLOBAL WARMING: END OF THE LINE

Source: BLAZINGCATFUR.

“You do not repair the climate of an entire planet without staggering sacrifices unless the burden is shared with something like parity. To put that as succinctly as possible, the days of paradise for a few are drawing to a close. The game of finding someone else in some convenient misery to fight our wars, pull our rickshaws, and serve as the offset for our every filthy indulgence is just about up. It is either Earth for all of us or hell for most of us.”

Garret Keizer

Climate, Class, and Claptrap

Harper’s, June 2007, p. 9-11

TASMANIA: SWIFT PARROTS FACING POPULATION COLLAPSE

Tasmania´s Swift Parrot (Lathamus discolor). Source: Wikipedia.

Source: ANUchannel
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The iconic Tasmanian swift parrot is facing population collapse and could become extinct within 16 years, new research has found.

The researchers have called on the Federal Government to list the birds as critically endangered.

"Swift parrots are in far worse trouble than anybody previously thought," said leader of the study, Professor Robert Heinsohn, from The Australian National University (ANU).

"Everyone, including foresters, environmentalists and members of the public will be severely affected if they go extinct," said Professor Heinsohn from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society.

Swift parrots are major pollinators of blue and black gum trees which are crucial to the forestry industry, which controversially continues to log swift parrot habitat.

The five-year study discovered that swift parrots move between different areas of Tasmania each year to breed, depending on where food is available.

The new data was combined with a previous study that showed that swift parrots are preyed on heavily by sugar gliders, especially in deforested areas.

The research predicted that the population of the birds will halve every four years, with a possible decline of 94.7 per cent over 16 years.

A moratorium on logging in swift parrot habitat is needed until new plans for their protection can be drawn up, said co-researcher, Dr Dejan Stojanovic, also from ANU Fenner School.

"Current approaches to swift parrot management look rather inadequate," he said.

"Our models are a wake-up call. Actions to preserve their forest habitat cannot wait."

The research has been published in the latest edition of Biological Conservation.

INSIDE THE GARBAGE OF THE WORLD: A WAKE UP CALL DOCUMENTARY

Photo courtesy of The Center for Biological Diversity. Photo taken by EwanEdwards / The Clipperton Project via My Wildhood.

We humans are literally killing the oceans. We are destroying the living creatures that live in the oceans. And in turn we are killing ourselves.

How? With plastics. As simple as that.

Please take the time to watch the following documentary on plastics in the world´s oceans. It is excellent!!

Source: Philippe Carrillo

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Is the Plastic Trash Island floating in the Pacific Ocean a myth? 
Are we getting poisoned? 

How long do we have before a worldwide disaster happen?

This Documentary includes interview from Capt. Moore (Algalita Marine Research Institute), Anna Cummins (5 gyres Institute), Dr Andrea Neal (Jean-Michel Cousteau), Surfrider Foundation and a variety of Scientist and Doctors who have been researching how bad the situation is. 

It will give you a real idea of how much damage we are creating and how fast we have to stop in order to survive the future.

Thank you.

Uploaded by Philippe Carrillo.

COSTA RICA: THE DARK SIDE OF PINEAPPLES (EL LADO OSCURO DE LAS PIÑAS)

Pineapples (Ananas comosus). Source: cr.hoy.com

By Gundhramns Hammer
May 4, 2015
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Upon hearing the name "pineapple", average Europeans or Americans might conjure images of the lushy tropical vegetation and its great variety of fruits.

For those of you hunting after pineapples, here are a few questions: 

• Do you like pineapples? 
• Do you enjoy eating this tropical fruit? 
• Do you know anything about the working conditions of the workers that slave away picking up the pineapples somewhere in the tropics? 
• Do you give a damn about them? 
• Do you care about the toxic chemicals used in pineapple monocultures? 
• Do you care about the social and ecological impact this crop has on the local communities and environment where this fruit is planted?

If so, we have an interesting documentary (Video 1) for you which will show you the truth multinationals do not want you to know about pineapples. We will go to Costa Rica to find out what is going on there:

Source: YouTube

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Guerras de precios de los supermercados, residuos tóxicos y frutas tropicales. Una producción de Guardian Films para Consumers International y la OCU, este documental de investigación expone condiciones sociales y ambientales inaceptables que padecen las comunidades productoras de piña en Costa Rica ... y por qué los supermercados más importantes de Europa deben compartir la culpa.

Video 1. The dark side of pineapples (El lado oscuro de las piñas). Uploaded by Consumers International.

Watch this documentary with subtitles 

in Danish/Dansk (here/her) 

or French/Français (here(ici).

Only English (here). 

This is basically what happens wherever pineapples are cultivated in the tropics, whether it is in Nigeria, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Panama (Fig. 1) or anywhere else. 

Figure 1. Worker applying pesticides in pineapple (Ananas comosus) field in Panama. Source: OIRSA (2000).

It is a crop that requires human labour and intensive use of agrochemicals, particularly herbicides and insecticides.

Now you know. It is up to you whether you buy this delicious fruit when imported and sold in the supermarkets in your city.

Unless you grow them ecologically, which means no use of man-made chemicals and living in the tropics, pineapples (Ananas comosus) sold in our supermarkets always contain residues of dangerous agrochemicals such as glyphosate, and multiple organophosphate and organochlorine compounds such as aldrin, parathion, DDT, endosulfan, heptachlor, disulfoton, dimethoate (Gutiérrez et al., 2010), amongst others.

Consider yourself lucky if you can get this delicious fruit through fair trade which is being implemented in some tropical countries (e.g., Costa Rica).

But beware of tricksters that might use fair trade to do some wheeling and dealing! 

References

García D. (2013). El Lado Amargo de la Piña. cr.hoy.com, Noticias 24/7, Costa Rica.

Gutiérrez J. A., Pinzón M. I., Londoño A., Blach D. & Rojas A. M. (2010). Residuos de Plaguicidas Organoclorados, Organofosforados y Análisis Fisicoquímico en Piña (Ananas comosus). Agro Sur. 38 (3): 199-211.

OIRSA (Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria) (2000). Manual Técnico: Uso y Manejo Seguro de Plaguicidas en el Cultivo de Piña. Panamá. 33 pp.