“Built Environment”

Capitalism, faced by natural obstacles, sees no alternative to a new assault on nature, employing new, high-tech armaments.

  The ecological irrationality of this response is evident in the tendency to
dissociate global warming from the global environmental crisis as a whole, which includes such problems as species extinction, destruction of the oceans, tropical deforestation, desertification, toxic wastes, etc.

It is then possible, from this narrow perspective, to promote biofuels as a
partial solution to global warming — without acknowledging that this will
accelerate world hunger. Or it is thought pragmatic to dump iron filings in the
ocean (the so-called Geritol solution to global warming) in order to grow
phytoplankton and increase the carbon absorbing capacity of the ocean — without connecting this at all to the current oceanic catastrophe. The fact that the biosphere is one interconnected whole is downplayed in favor of mere economic expediency.

 What all of this suggests is that a real solution to the planetary
environmental crisis cannot be accomplished simply through new technologies or through turning nature into a market. It is necessary to go to the root of the problem by addressing the social relations of production.

We must recognize that today’s ecological problems are related to a system of global inequality that demands ecological destruction as a necessary condition of its existence. New social and democratic solutions need to be developed and rooted in human community and sustainability, embodying principles of conservation that are essential to life. But this means stepping outside the capitalist box and making peace with the planet — and with other human beings.
   
-John Bellamy Foster

Professor of sociology at the University of Oregon in
Eugene, and editor of Monthly Review.   

Here is an opportunity to learn about EIA-provided by Centre for Science and Environment

Training: Understanding EIA: From screening to decision making
New Delhi, August 27-31, 2007

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CSE invites applications for its five-day training programme, which aims at demystifying Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for NGOs, environment managers and community-based organisations (CBOs). It also seeks to develop the capacity of state-level regulators and state level expert appraisal committees to screen and scope the EIA process, evaluate reports and conduct public consultations, especially after the new EIA notification.

The course will expose participants to:
- Technical and new legal aspects of EIA
- Environmental and social impacts of various types of developmental projects
- Hands-on exercises in screening, scoping, data analysis and developing environment management plans
- Tools and thumb rules to evaluate various environmental and social impact parameters
- Techniques to engage in public consultation
- Post-EIA monitoring

Last date for registration:
July 31, 2007

Register online >>
http://www.cseindia.org/programme/industry/eia/eia_form.htm

For more information contact:
Sujit Kumar Singh
<sujit@cseindia.org>

Note:
- Course is open to NGOs, academicians, regulators, decision makers and industries
- Due discount will be given to grassroots NGOs and CBOs

….Simple arithmetic provides a total, today, of around 1,300 tigers in the country; some tiger biologists believe the actual number may be less than 1,000, perhaps even as few as 800.
 

We do not need to argue the numbers: whichever way you look at the tiger’s situation, it is dire; it is a national crisis. But is the government bothered? Do we see the Ministry of Environment and Forests galvanised into action now that their own Tiger Conservation Authority and Wildlife Institute of India project is providing data that confirms what conservationists have been saying for the last few years. Tragically not. What we find is a government at best silent, at worst still disowning and denying the figures. What will it take to convince it? We have had facts and figures and images of Indian tiger skins poached and swamping Tibet; we have had Indian tiger biologists with scientific data to back their arguments, we have had children petitioning the PM in for the tiger’s cause, we have a high-profile tiger reserve (Sariska) lose all its tigers; we now have a major ‘official’ study showing exactly where tigers can still be found and from where they are missing, a study showing how fragmented their habitat is, how precarious their existence: yet, the point is argued and denied. 

-Joanna Van Gruisen is a wildlife photographer and former editor, TigerLink News

Source: Hindustan Times 25 May 2007

Watch these films on Discovery channel on 20^th July 2007

Wildlife crime- UK Environment Film Fellowships 2006

 Once there was a purple butterfly-Sonya V. Kapoor

Sonya says that of the 1,500 species of butterflies in India, 400 are on the verge of extinction; this was reason enough to track down butterfly poachers—entire villages in Kerala—where they catch and supply rare species to traders from south-east Asia.

Leopards in the Lurch— Gurmeet Sapal

The film shows that most of the leopards/cheetahs that are killed in the Himachal are not just by poachers but by locals - on the pretext that they are man-eaters.

However, Sapal says, forensic evidence shows that several of those killed in the Garhwal forests were innocent.

The Hunted - Jay Mazoomdar   

“If the extinction of tigers is be tackled effectively, the traditional hunter is to be shown an alternative livelihood.”

Jay’s film shows the Moghiya hunters of MP and Rajasthan who hunt tigers for larger traders for measly sums. “It would be difficult for this trade to flourish in the absence of skilled hunters,” he adds.

Vanishing Seas-Himanshu Malhotra

For husband-wife duo, Himanshu Malhotra and Sabina Kidwai, the endangered marine coral reefs in Lakshwadeep and Andaman spell the death of an entire eco-system.

Turtles in a Soup-Kalpana Subramanian

Freshwater turtles in the Gangetic river systems and their systematic poaching led Kalpana Subramanian to make her film Turtles in a Soup. The trade, she says, has moved on from simply shipping turtle meat to actually processing the more easily transportable ‘plastron’ (turtle cartilage) into chips thus making it more “invisible and difficult to nab”.

The Last Dance- Ashima Narain

Under the law, the Indian sloth bear is entitled to the same protection as the tiger.  Yet crimes against it are committed openly across India as bears are made to dance for our entertainment.  By venturing on an undercover anti-poaching operation and witnessing the surrender of a dancing bear, the film shows how this crime can be brought to an end.

The Silenced Witness-P.Balan and R.Radha

“The Silenced Witness” analyses why despite having about 60 per cent of the world population of Asiatic and despite the animal being revered for centuries, the magnificent mammal is fighting for survival.

The story centres around crimes committed on Elephants in Kerala - both domesticated and wild.

There is a growing sense of panic among global political and business leaders, especially in countries such as Singapore that have large coastal regions threatened by rising sea levels.

Therein lies the profit opportunity for Silicon Valley technologists, who are quickly shifting more attention to clean-tech. Clean-tech ventures are now receiving ten percent of venture flows, up from just one percent a few years ago.

 “We think clean-tech is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” As if Silicon Valley clean tech entrepreneurs and investors didn’t already have enough reasons to feel bullish about the fast growing clean tech industry, a disturbing new scientific study published May 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that the annual growth rate of global C02 emissions measured in 2004 is nearly triple the rates previously measured between 1990 and 1999. 73 percent of global carbon emissions growth is coming from developing countries like China and India.

- Nicholas Parker, co-founder and chairman of The Cleantech Group, an international network of clean tech business leaders and investors

If future generations could vote on how foundations invest their money today, would they choose the current allocation?

Only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology. Of the top 50 foundation grantees in 2004, only three were environmental organizations.

Even those foundations that do work on ecosystems spend much of their resources on small-scale land conservation. Government priorities are also skewed to the here and now. As the Oct. 30, 2006, New York Times reports, U.S. federal spending on energy research has fallen to $3 billion – less than half of its level in 1980 – while spending on medical research has quadrupled to $28 billion over the same period.

Human-caused climate change, sharply declining conventional energy sources, and population growth are threatening the very platform of human life. Yet fully two-thirds of U.S. foundation spending goes to current human health and well-being, and seven of the 10 largest U.S. foundations concentrate on human health or the arts, according to the Foundation Center’s latest statistics (from 2004). The world’s second largest foundation (Stichting Ingka, the IKEA fortune) focuses on interior design.

 A management problem that keeps foundations preoccupied with the present is their lack of coordination with other organizations. With family control of many foundation boards and disparate and idiosyncratic board agendas, coordination for achieving bigger aims is structurally difficult.

Source:http://www.ssireview.org

No species can survive on this planet without respecting the three basic laws of ecology.

 (1) The law of biodiversity—that the strength of an eco-system is dependent upon the diversity of species within it.

(2) The law of interdependence—that these species must be interdependent to support a strong eco-system and

(3) the law of finite resources—that there is a limit to growth. Growing human numbers utilized vast amounts of resources and steal carrying capacity from other species resulting in the collapse of diversity.

The greatest fear is not something in the future but something happening now. We are in the midst of a mass extinction event and thus in danger of radically altering the entire biosphere.

Captain Paul Watson, Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, USA in http://www.emagazine.com