A Federal judge has thrown out the Quechan Nation’s request for an injunction against the controversial Ocotillo Express Wind Project in western Imperial County, California.
The Quechan filed for the injunction on May 14, just three days after the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, gave “fast-track” approval for the project. The Quechan complaint stated that the Department of Interior, in approving the project, “violated… federal laws, regulations, and policies including the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA); National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA); National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); Administrative Procedures Act (APA); and the CDCA [The California Desert Conservation Area] Plan.”
The complaint went on to explain that the massive 10,150-acre project area contains 287 archaeological sites including geoglyphs, petroglyphs, sleeping circles and other sites of spiritual significance; thousands of artifacts, and at least 12 burial (an exhaustive survey has not been carried out).
Construction of the 112-turbine project would utterly devastate these sites.
Furthermore, the project jeopardizes the delicate desert ecosystem which is “home to the Federally endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep and the flat-tailed horned lizard, a perennial candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act,” says Chris Clarke, Director of Desert Biodiversity. “The turbines on the site would stand 450 feet tall with blades more than 180 feet long. With blades of that length, if the turbines spin at a leisurely 10 rpm the speed of the blade tips will approach 140 miles per hour, a serious threat to the region’s migratory birds — including the protected golden eagle,” he continues.
A day after filing for an injunction, on May 15, Quechan Tribal Council President Kenny Escalanti issued this statement outside the offices of Pattern Energy, the company behind the project.
He also spoke at a press conference alongside environmentalists and area residents in which he calls on President Obama to meet with tribal leaders and halt the destruction of sacred sites.
Robert Scheid, Viejas Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, spoke at the same press conference, calling on people across America to seek a national moratorium on industrial-scale energy projects on public lands. “Viejas leaders have asked to meet with President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar”, reports East County Magazine “to share concerns over violations of laws that are supposed to protect tribal cultural resources; but have received no response”.
With the denial of the Quechan petition, Pattern Energy can now proceed with their construction plans without restraint. And they aren’t wasting any time. A new website documenting the daily destruction of the Ocotillo desert has just been launched: www.SaveOcotillo.picturepush.com.
If the construction is completed, the wind turbines will spin for no more than 30 years.
If moose disappear from the boreal forest of northern Minnesota, as some biologists predict, they will not exit with a thunderous crash. Climate extinctions come quietly, even when they involve 1,000-pound herbivores.
Experts who have studied the Northwestern moose — Alces alces andersoni — believe they are witnessing one of the most precipitous nonhunting declines of a major species in the modern era, yet few outside Minnesota fully appreciate the loss.
The moose is an iconic species whose existence is woven into the social, economic and cultural fabric of this region. Its elongated head and wide antlers are emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to tire flaps. The 1960s cartoon character Bullwinkle J. Moose and his flying squirrel friend Rocky were residents of the fictionalized town of Frostbite Falls, Minn.
But the animals that inspired Bullwinkle are not what they were. Here, even healthy bulls — whose size, strength and rutting prowess make them the undisputed kings of the North Woods — are dying from what appear to be a combination of exhaustion, exposure, wasting disease triggered by parasites and other maladies.
The biologists are baffled and also helpless.
Mark Lenarz, who retired in March from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), where he led moose research efforts, said it’s not like the TV show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”
“Unlike ‘CSI,’ it’s very hard to identify in the field exactly what an animal is dying from,” he said. “We know something about the symptoms” of distressed moose, he added, “but we don’t necessarily know the exact causes of mortality.”
What Lenarz and other experts do know is that a variety of climate stressors — including higher average annual temperatures, a long string of very mild winters, and increasingly favorable conditions for ticks, parasites and other invasive species — are conspiring to make northern Minnesota a moose graveyard.
Since 2002, Minnesota DNR specialists have put radio collars on 150 healthy adult moose; 119 subsequently died, most of them from unknown causes, according to wildlife officials. Car and train collisions accounted for 12 mortalities, while wolves were culpable in just 11 deaths.
Sudden collapse of herds
Meanwhile, annual surveys taken from helicopter overflights show that the state’s primary moose population, in the state’s northeastern Arrowhead region, has been halved in just six years, dropping from 8,840 animals in 2006 to just 4,230 this year. The decline mirrors a similar collapse a decade ago in the state’s northwest corner, where moose plummeted from an estimated 4,000 animals in the mid-1980s to less than 100 by the mid-2000s.
While some monitoring of moose had occurred in the 1990s, most of the animals were gone before scientists could examine cause-and-effect relationships. In the Arrowhead, however, experts are watching mass mortality, discovering multiple moose carcasses in the same area, including animals that appeared relatively healthy only a few years before.
It’s not just the occasional sickly moose succumbing to common causes of mortality, said Lenarz. “We’re out in the
field collecting dead radio-collared moose, and we were finding other moose that had died along with them.”
Similar mysterious deaths of one or more moose have been documented in Voyageurs National Park, where the National Park Service had launched its own radio-collar study of the animals, and in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where moose sightings used to be routine for visitors but are increasingly rare.
Tiny pieces of plastic contaminate almost every sea in the world. Now scientists have found that marine creatures like fish and birds are eating this microscopic waste, which may be harming their health.
The main concern is that microplastics are plastic pieces too small to see with the naked eye. They may be small by design, or be fragments of larger pieces of plastic waste.
Their size means they can be mistaken for food by even the smallest sea creatures, as well as large animals like seabirds and fish.
Scientists are concerned about the damage this could be causing. Plastics could block animals’ digestive systems or lower the amount of food they can eat. Not only that, but microplastics can carry toxic chemicals on their surface. So, scientists are calling for further research into pollution from microscopic waste.
“Things have progressed in terms of understanding where you can find microplastics and how much is out there, but we still haven’t worked out what damage this is doing to animals,” says Matthew Cole from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Exeter, who has co-authored a major review of all published microplastic studies.
“We’re still on the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding how these particles affect the health of marine animals,” he adds.
Mass production of plastic began in the 1940s and has since exploded. In 2009, 230 million tonnes of plastic were produced, equivalent to the weight of a double-decker bus every two seconds. The increase in large plastic waste in the sea quickly concerned people, because of its visibility. Understandably, the spread of microscopic plastic fragments has gone largely unnoticed by the general public.
But the chemicals these fragments carry may be more dangerous than the plastics themselves. Plastic often contains additives to make it last longer. These additives can be harmful to health, changing hormonal patterns in fish and birds. And, because plastics are oil-based, they are particularly good at attracting waterborne pollutants from other sources.
These persistent organic pollutants can lead to hormone disruption, development problems and cancer. If marine animals swallow tiny plastic particles, the chemicals on their surface could be easily taken up.
“Almost like a Trojan horse, microplastics can help transfer potentially dangerous chemicals to animals,” Cole explains.
The scientists also looked at where these microplastics come from. Some are designed to be microscopic. These include the beads used in exfoliating facial washes, as well as those used in air-blasters to remove rust and paint from the hulls of boats. Other microplastics may be fragments of bigger objects, from plastic bags to fishing gear.
Half the world’s population lives within just 50 miles of the coast, so it’s easy to see how plastic waste gets into the marine environment. It finds its way into storm drains and sewage systems, where it slips through the filters in wastewater treatment works into rivers and out to sea. Around 80 percent of plastic debris in the sea comes from inland.
Now, Cole is trying to work out whether the tiniest sea creatures, called zooplankton, can take up microplastics. This is the first stage in trying to understand whether these particles can travel up the food chain. If they can get into zooplankton, then they could be passed on to bigger animals that eat them. This so-called trophic transfer could ultimately affect us too.
“If they’re trophically transferred they could end up in the human food supply,” says Cole. “But, without doing a lot more work we won’t know what the full effects of these compounds are.”
According to a new report by Greenpeace, top U.S. car companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Nissan are sourcing pig iron that has resulted in the destruction of Amazon rainforests, slave labor, and land conflict with indigenous tribes. Spending two years documenting the pig iron trade between northeastern Brazil and the U.S., Greenpeace has discovered that rainforests are cut and burned to power blast furnaces that produce pig iron, which is then shipped to the U.S. for steel production.
“Despite attention to the problem over the years, little has been done and household consumer products in the U.S. can still be traced back to illegalities and forest destruction in the Amazon,” the Greenpeace report reads.
Brazil’s Carajás region is home to 43 blast furnaces used by 18 different companies, of which Viena is the largest. The blast furnaces depend largely on illegal camps that cut and burn rainforest for charcoal.
“These camps are built in a matter of days, located in difficult to access areas and, if shut down by authorities, frequently spring up again in another location. They are built next to wood sources, including illegally in protected areas and indigenous lands,” the report reads, noting that labor conditions in the area are often similar to slavery. Often forced to work seven-days-a-week in hazardous and toxic conditions, workers are fleeced of salaries by imaginary debts.
The massive pig iron production in the region has been actively promoted by the Brazilian government and financed in the past by the World Bank, the European Economic Community, and the Japanese government. However, such promotion has not kept the industry clean as Greenpeace documented several types of fraud, from running an operation without a license to creating fake companies to keep timber sources hidden. Not surprisingly, much of the fuel comes from illegal logging.
Greenpeace linked two of the largest pig iron companies, Viena and Sidepar, to a steel mill in the U.S. run by Severstal and from there to major car manufacturers like Ford, General Motors, BMW, Nissan, and Mercedes. Viena also exports its pig iron to Cargill, Environmental Materials Corporation, and National Material Trading, which in turn sells the steel to John Deere.
“Greenpeace’s research found Viena and Sidepar fueling their foundries with illegal charcoal connected to the region’s pandemic illegalities including slavery, illegal logging and deforestation, and invasions into indigenous lands,” reads the report.
Around 70-80 percent of the region’s forests have been lost already, with the bulk of it since pig iron production began in the mid-1980s. With forest running out in the region, loggers are now entering indigenous lands and conservation areas. Some indigenous tribes, such as the Awá and the Alto Rio Guamá, have lost over 30 percent of their land to the illegal loggers.
“Loggers flagrantly violate the law and bring in multiple trucks for hauling away timber and often enter indigenous lands well armed,” reads the Greenpeace report.
Despite this issue being in the media since 2006, companies have taken little action or responsibility according to Greenpeace.
A new gold rush is sweeping through Latin America with devastating consequences, ravaging tropical forests and dumping toxic chemicals as illegal miners fight against big international projects.
With international market prices for metals high, informal “wildcat” mining has been on the rise in recent years in countries like Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, itself one of the largest producers of silver, copper and gold.
Mining investments in those countries are expected to reach some $300 billion in 2020, according to the Inter-American Mining Society.
But over 160 mining conflicts have erupted across the region amid growing opposition from locals against projects they consider a threat to the environment, the Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America says.
During the past decade, the price of gold went from $270 to between $1,600-1,800 per ounce, as people rushed to convert their cash into the precious metal seen as a safe investment during the global economic crisis.
And the price of copper is at an all-time high thanks to China’s insatiable appetite for it.
Unlicensed mining, especially for gold, has already killed hundreds of people and devastated thousands of hectares (acres) in the Amazon forest, where miners have set up camps that destroy everything in their path.
To extract each ounce of gold, it takes two or three ounces of mercury, which fouls waterways after being poured into rivers from the mining sites. In their search for water, the miners raze tropical forestsusing bulldozers.
The phenomenon has also sown disaster among the local population, with thousands of men, women and children exploited and living in squalid camps with no schools or health centers.
In Peru, an estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people work in illegal mines, while a thousand children are sexually exploited in brothels known locally as “prostibars” in the southeastern province of Madre de Dios, according to Save The Children.
The practice is particularly widespread in the improvised mining camps, where fortune-hunter try to make a living from the illegal exploitation of precious metals.
“There are dozens of prostibars, filled with hundreds of girls who were told they would make a lot of money,” said Teresa Carpio, director of Save the Children in Peru.
“It’s total exploitation of a human being. Living conditions are appalling and all human values are perverted.”
Indigenous and black communities have long used child workers for gold mining. And an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 children currently work in small-scale mining in Colombia, according to Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) data.
In Madre de Dios, one of the poorest regions of Peru, about 18 tonnes of gold are produced per year, while some 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of tropical forest are destroyed.
Thousands of people in Colombia have started exploiting abandoned mines in the northwestern department of Antioquia and Choco. In Bolivia, about 10,000 people make a living off the illegal mining of gold in extreme conditions, ARM says.
The growing thirst for mineral resources makes Latin America one of the most attractive regions for investment, set to dominate world production of precious metals by 2020.
Today, Latin America accounts for 45 percent of global copper production, 50 percent of silver and 20 percent of gold.
In 48 years wildlife populations in the tropics, the region that holds the bulk of the world’s biodiversity, have fallen by an alarming 61 percent, according to the most recent update to the Living Planet Index. Produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the index currently tracks almost 10,000 populations of 2,688 vertebrate species (including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish) in both the tropics and temperate regions.
“Much as a stock market index measures the state of the market by tracking changes in […] a selection of companies, changes in abundance (i.e., the total number of individuals in a given population) across a selection of species can be used as one important indicator of the planet’s ecological condition,” the report reads.
Between 1970 to 2008, species abundance in the tropics fell by 44 percent on land, 62 percent in the oceans, and 70 percent in freshwater environments, culminating in an average loss of 1.25 percent every year since the baseline was set in 1970. Wildlife populations are declining due to a number of large-scale human impacts including ongoing deforestation, habitat degradation, overexploitation for food or medicine, pollution, agricultural, overfishing, invasive species, disease, climate change, dams, mining, and other industrial projects.
The report also examines impacts in particular regions. Wildlife populations in tropical Africa have dropped by 38 percent, by half in the Neotropics (Central and South America) by half, and by 64 percent in the Indo-Pacific (including India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Pacific Islands). This is perhaps not surprising since the world’s highest deforestation levels are in Southeast Asia.”These declines reflect large-scale forest and other habitat loss across these realms, driven by logging, growing human populations, and agricultural, industrial and urban developments,” the report reads.In the Neotropics, recent years have seen amphibians decimated by a fungal disease. The disease, known as chytridiomycosis, is not only cutting populations down but also pushing dozens of species to extinction.
“This report is like a planetary check-up and the results indicate we have a very sick planet. Ignoring this diagnosis will have major implications for humanity. We can restore the planet’s health, but only through addressing the root causes, population growth and over-consumption of resources,” Jonathan Baillie, conservation program director with the Zoological Society of London said in a press release.
Biodiversity provides many services to global society, including pollination, carbon sequestration, food production, soil health, and life-saving medicines among others, although few of these ‘ecosystem services’ are yet recognized by the global market.
