by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 2, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Burning coal fuels climate change, causes acid rain, and spreads toxic pollutants into the environment, but now a new Greenpeace report warns that coal may also imperil the world’s biggest feline: the tiger. Home to world’s largest population of tigers—in this case the Bengal subspecies (Panthera tigris tigris)—India is also the world’s third largest coal producer. The country’s rapacious pursuit of coal—it has nearly doubled production since 2007—has pushed the industry into tiger territory, threatening to destroy forests and fragment the tiger’s already threatened population.
“Unfortunately for the tiger, its largest contiguous habitat—Central India—is also where most of India’s coal lies,” Ashish Fernandes, author of the report, told mongabay.com.
India is one of the bright spots in the global effort to save the tiger from extinction. The country now holds around 1,700 tigers, over half of the world’s population of wild tigers. Although India’s tiger population is generally considered to be in decline, there have been some local population increases giving hope that the country can turn around the situation. Yet the tiger still faces poaching and habitat loss, the latter which is likely to be exacerbated by open pit mining for coal.
“Several of India’s largest coalfields (such as Singrauli and Talcher) include forest areas adjoining Tiger Reserves, and where tigers are found. Coal mines are already eating into these areas, and with the ongoing expansion, this will worsen,” Fernandes says.The Bengal tiger, which is considered Endangered by the IUCN Red List, is the undisputed king in these forests, which in some cases also sports populations of leopard (Panthera pardus), Near Threatened; Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), Endangered; sloth bear, (Melursus ursinus), Vulnerable; sambar (Rusa unicolor), Vulnerable; and other non-threatened deer and antelope species.
Analyzes 13 Central Indian coal mines, in various stages of exploitation, the report finds that full open pit mining in these areas would destroy over a million hectares of forest. According to official data, 18 percent of these forests are known to be used by tigers, 27 percent by leopards, and 5.5 percent by elephants. In all, eight of India’s renowned Tiger Reserves will be impacted, potentially harming around 230 tigers or 13 percent of India’s total tiger population.
“India’s Protected Areas/Tiger Reserves are small by global standards, with few larger than 500 square kilometers. As such, if isolated, their tiger populations are not viable in the long term,” Fernandes explains. “Tigers, males in particular, roam large areas in search of mates, and this ensures genetic vibrancy. As young tigers mature, they also need to establish their own territories, or face conflict with dominant males. Corridors help aid this dispersal and ensure a healthy gene flow between different ‘source’ tiger populations.”
India is a signatory of an ambitious conservation plan to double wild tiger populations worldwide by 2022, a plan which was endorsed by all 13 tiger countries in 2010. Worldwide, tigers have been decimated by habitat loss, prey depletion, and hunting, now largely to feed the Chinese medicine trade. The great cats have been left with about 7 percent of their historical range, and already three subspecies have vanished for good.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 19, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Noncooperation
By Agence France-Presse
Surging demand for palm oil in India for cooking and everyday grocery items is driving tropical forest destruction in Indonesia, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
In its report “Frying the Forest” the group called on Indians to boycott products by brands Britannia, ITC, Parle and Godrej, such as biscuits and soap, until the companies commit to sustainable palm oil supply chains.
“Palm oil plantations in Indonesia are expanding rapidly every year to meet India’s demands,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Mohammed Iqbal Abisaputra said in Jakarta.
“We are asking Indian consumers now to stop buying products made from unsustainable Indonesian palm oil.”
Booming India is the world’s hungriest nation for palm oil, consuming almost 7.4 million tonnes last year, or 15 percent of global production, almost all of it imported, US Foreign Agricultural Service data show.
Of that amount, 5.8 million tonnes is imported from Indonesian companies, many of which Greenpeace claims are illegally clearing carbon-rich peatland.
One company targeted by the group is Duta Palma, which owns 155,000 hectares of palm oil plantations in Indonesia, the report says.
The company is deforesting peatland up to eight metres deep on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the report says, despite a law banning the clearance of peatland more than three metres deep.
Greenpeace also claims fires continue to burn on peatland within the company’s concession, even though the slash-and-burn technique for forest clearance is illegal.
The report comes after a string of successful consumer-targeted Greenpeace campaigns, in which brands like Barbie-maker Mattel and food-maker Kraft dropped paper packaging contracts with Asia Pulp & Paper, who were accused of logging outside their concession area.
The focus on India marks a shift in Greenpeace’s strategy to consumers in developing countries.
“Asian countries will be among the first to feel the effects of climate change, so we can no longer act as if it’s Europe or America’s problem,” Abisaputra said.
Indonesia has implemented a two-year moratorium on issuing new logging concessions on peatland and other high-conservation forest. But unsustainable logging continues within companies’ existing concessions.
Before the moratorium, 80 percent of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions came from deforestation, UN data show, making it the world’s third-biggest emitter.
From PhysOrg: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-palm-oil-india-indonesian-forests.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 10, 2012 | Toxification
By The Canadian Press
Crews were scrambling Friday to contain and clean up a pipeline spill that is believed to have sent up to 475,000 litres of crude oil flowing into a rain-swollen Red Deer River system in west-central Alberta.
Plains Midstream Canada says when the spill was discovered Thursday night it closed off its network of pipelines in the area.
Tracey McCrimmon, executive director of a community group that works with the industry, said it was rural homeowners who first raised the alarm about an oil pipeline spill.
She said people who live just north of Sundre phoned in reports Thursday night of smelling rotten eggs — the telltale odour of sour gas or sour oil.
“The first call that we got was at 8:40 pm. There was an odour complaint. We had multiple calls of a rotten egg smell,” said McCrimmon, director of the Sundre Petroleum Operators Group.
“We called all of the oil and gas operators within six kilometres of the area. They were able to source the odour within an hour.”
The company said the oil spilled into Jackson Creek near the community of Sundre, about 100 kilometres from Red Deer. Jackson Creek flows into the Red Deer River.
Recent heavy rains have swollen streams and rivers in the area, some to near flood stage, and local officials are concerned the oil will spread more quickly down the system.
“There’s oil in the river and the river is moving very quickly right now because of the recent rains and meltwater,” said Bruce Beattie, reeve of Mountain View County, which is on the river system.
“Certainly anything that is coming out of the pipeline or that did come out of the pipeline is certainly moving quickly down stream.
“It’s going to be a major environmental concern for sure.”
The region around Sundre is considered pristine wilderness by many in Alberta. It’s a common getaway area for people in Calgary and popular with anglers and hunters. The area where the oil spilled is sparsely populated and mostly ranch land.
Alberta Environment spokeswoman Jessica Potter said communities and individuals downstream of the spill have been told not to use river water until further notice.
“Residents in the area have been notified that a spill has taken place,” she said.
“Water intakes have been shut at all facilities downstream and we are encouraging people to shut-in their water and not draw from the river at this time.”
Premier Alison Redford headed to nearby Dixon Dam to hold a news conference Friday afternoon where she said the spill had been contained to the Glennifer reservoir and crews were working to minimize the environmental impact.
She said there will be an investigation but added that Alberta’s pipeline system is supported by a strong regulatory framework that serves as a model for other jurisdictions.
“It’s my expectation that the minister of environment and the minister of energy, as well as the (Energy Resources Conservation Board), will have to review those investigations once they’re completed to determine the cause of this incident and then to take whatever steps might need to be taken in order to prevent this in the future.”
She said until the investigation is complete, it’s too early to say whether aging infrastructure is to blame.
“Albertans have an expectation that the infrastructure that we have in place … is strong,” she said.
“It is unfortunate when these events happen. We are fortunate in this province that they don’t happen very often, and we can have some confidence that when they do happen, we have plans in place to deal with them.”
But Mike Hudema of Greenpeace said the damage has already been done to the central Alberta ecosystem. He wants a halt to approval of any new pipelines until changes and upgrades can be made to the existing infrastructure.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said changes need to be made to existing laws.
“I don’t think we’re paying adequate attention to what happens in real life versus what happens in the fossil fuel wonderland where everything goes wrong,” she said.
From The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/08/alberta-oil-spill-red-deer-river_n_1581008.html?ref=green&ir=Green
See also: “Pipeline in northwest Alberta ruptures, polluting muskeg with 22,000 barrels of oil and salt water“
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 3, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Fabiola Gutierrez and Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times
Plans to build a $3.2-billion complex of dams that would have flooded thousands of acres in the bio-diverse Patagonia region in southern Chile have been put on indefinite hold in the face of ongoing protests against the project.
The five dams of the so-called HidroAysen project would increase Chile’s electricity capacity by 15% upon completion in 2020. But it also would have flooded 12,500 acres of pristine territory that is increasingly popular as an eco-tourism destination.
Project partner Colbun, a utility company, announced Thursday that it was suspending work on an environmental impact study that is a prerequisite to starting the project, saying the government lacked a clear energy policy. The power utility that is majority partner, Enel-Endesa, also made it known that it wants to call a board of directors meeting to reconsider the project, roughly 1,000 miles south of the capital, Santiago.
The five dams would add 2,750 megawatts of power to the national power grid.
Protests have been frequent in the year since the dam was given preliminary approval. Thousands of marchers poured into the streets of Santiago in April to protest a Supreme Court decision greenlighting the project.
Critics claimed that the rationale for the project was mainly to provide cheap energy to mining companies, not to consumers. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has called the plan a “political and financial folly,” were among the groups opposed to the project.
Also opposing it is the Roman Catholic bishop of the Aysen region, Luis Infanti de la Mora, who in a pastoral letter last year said it would provide little local benefit.
But President Sebastian Pinera remains solidly behind the project, making the case that dams are necessary to reduce Chile’s 96% dependence on imported oil. But his backing of HidroAysen has been a factor in his plummeting support in polls.
The government responded Friday by rejecting the notion of a suspension and insisting that it has a “clear energy policy.” Opposition group Aysen Future Foundation said in a statement that the suspension highlights the fact that the project is questionable and that support for it has diminished.
From The Los Angeles Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/dam-project-chile-patagonia-suspended.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 30, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Vincent Bevins / Los Angeles Times
The Brazilian government is pressing forward with controversial legislation that critics say will lead to widespread destruction of the Amazon rain forest.
After months of heated discussion, President Dilma Rousseff on Monday presented a final version of the bill that was heavily influenced by the country’s powerful agricultural lobby.
The update to the country’s 1965 Forestry Code would reduce both the amount of vegetation landowners must preserve and the future penalties paid for those who currently flout environmental laws. After valuable wood is sold, much of the land in deforested areas ends up being cleared for grazing cattle and agriculture.
“The project approved in Congress is the fruit of a torturous legislative process, made to serve the interests of a small part of society that wants to increase the possibility of deforestation and give amnesty to those who have already cut it down illegally,” said Maria Cecilia Wey de Brito, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil.
Rousseff suffered a surprise defeat in April at the hands of Congress’ ruralista voting bloc, which represents farming interests. The lawmakers managed to push through a version of the bill that rolled back environmental protections and gave amnesty to past violators.
Since then, she has faced widespread pressure from those opposed to the changes — scientists, public figures, celebrities, as well as business leaders and politicians — to veto the bill. However, facing long odds of winning approval for tougher environmental legislation in Congress, she announced Friday only a partial veto, leaving it much more lenient than the laws currently in place.
Though Rousseff enjoys widespread support among Brazilians, her party controls only 15% of the seats in a Congress divided between more than 20 parties. Rousseff often has difficulty corralling a coalition to support her positions and may not have been able to hold back revisions to the forestry law any more than she did, analysts say.
“In environmental terms, the law should have been vetoed completely,” Luiz Antonio Martinelli, agronomist at the University of Sao Paulo, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. “But we know that would be very difficult politically.”
Over the weekend, activists from Greenpeace blocked a shipment of pig iron used by the U.S. steel industry from leaving a port, saying its production relied on illegal deforestation and slave labor. Q’orianka Kilcher, the American actress who played Pocahontas in the 2005 film “The New World,” participated last week by climbing the anchor chain of a cargo ship to stop it from docking. The protest was meant to raise awareness of the issue outside of Brazil, which will host the United Nations’ “Rio+20” environmental conference next month.
For decades the Amazon rain forest, the world’s largest, has been shrinking steadily. The forest is so vast that the Brazilian government monitors the rate of deforestation using satellite imagery.
Read more from Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-forests-20120529,0,2383595.story
