World-News

Globally we are consuming natural resources at a faster rate than our planet can replenish them.

We need to reduce our impact - our ecological footprint - to a sustainable level. The challenge that faces us all is how can people everywhere enjoy a high quality of life, within the capacity of one planet?

One of the answers lies in Mata de Sesimbra in Portugal. This is the first of five flagship communities, one in each continent, which will have sustainable ecological footprints yet maintain high standards of living.

Please sign our petition and help make this project a reality
http://mail.panda.org/inxmail/url?vty0q00gzli00blq43a3

Under the proposal, an area characterised by damaging development would be transformed into the world's first-ever integrated sustainable building, tourism, nature conservation and reforestation programme.

It will create thousands of zero-carbon, zero-waste homes, restore degraded woodland and lead to thousands of new jobs for local people.

All it now needs is approval by the authorities, and that's where you come in. Take action today and support sustainable living.
http://mail.panda.org/inxmail/url?vty0q00gzli00blq43a3

Thank you,

WWF International

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The Human Ecological Footprint
http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/2064926/

Add Your Voice: Help Gain Full Protection for Corals
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/protect_corals

Elkhorn and staghorn corals were once the primary components of coral reef ecosystems throughout the Caribbean. But since the 1970s, these species have declined by more than 97 percent in nearly every location that scientists have studied. Coral diseases and global warming are threatening the continued existence of these species, but fortunately, the Endangered Species Act provides effective tools to overcome these threats.

After being prompted by the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently protected elkhorn and staghorn corals as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, a major advancement for coral reef conservation. However, NMFS has not yet created a proposal to protect the corals' critical habitats, and has not yet placed restrictions (known as “take” prohibitions) on killing or harming the species. Please write NMFS today and ask that it provide full protection for Caribbean corals through complete take prohibitions and by designating critical habitat as soon as possible.

Tell me more
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/protect_corals/explanation

Last week Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research observed the highest air pollution on record since measurements began in Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=80&news:oid=n5257

18.05.06

Ein Bündnis von Umweltverbänden warnt eindringlich vor einem fortschreitenden "Landverbrauch" in Deutschland. Deutschland werde "zubetoniert". Täglich würden "über 100 Hektar Boden und freie Landschaft geopfert". Claus-Peter Hutter von der Umweltstiftung Euronatur plädierte am Donnerstag in Berlin gegenüber der Parlamentarische Staatssekretärin Astrid Klug für eine dauerhafte "Abkopplung" des Landverbrauchs vom Wirtschaftswachstum. Die Umweltverbände plädieren für eine "konsequente Innenentwicklung statt Bauen auf der grünen Wiese" sowie für eine "ökologische Reform des Gemeindefinanzsystems". Dies könne "gleichermaßen Wirtschaft wie Lebensqualität fördern".

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=13652

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/16/mcgrady/index.html


Informant: NHNE

The governments of Argentina and Bolivia joined civil society organisations, in the Austrian capital, to accuse European companies of disregarding laws on the environment, civil rights and labour in their operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article13043.htm

A David-and-Goliath-style battle between Honduran villagers and an international conglomerate shows how the hunt for precious metal can threaten some of the world's most vulnerable people and their environment.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/051106EA.shtml

A message from Ruth:

Signed 10. May! - Greetings from Doris and her husband Lars, too!

Dear friends who care about our earth. Judge for yourself if you want to take action. In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers. Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it. Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide the second largest source of income for the area. Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world – and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip. The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold. The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior. The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006. The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of specially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process. Every last gramme of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses. The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior. Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is from here. We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following way. Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your signature and send it to everyone in your address book. Please will the
100th person to receive and sign the petition send it to noapascualama@yahoo.ca to be forwarded to the Chilean government. No to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the Chilean-Argentine frontier. We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama project to protect the whole of 3 glaciers, the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and El Transito, the quality of the agricultural land of the region of Atacama, the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole population of the region.

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http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/90494

Subject: Gold-mining Co. wants to destroy Glaciers!

Message: We, the Undersigned, endorse the following petition:
Say “No” to the project “Pascua-Lama”.

Target: John McDonough, Vicepresident, Barrick

Say “No” to the project “Pascua-Lama”. A project of the transnational enterprise Barrick Gold, is a clear menace to some glaciers in a region of Los Andes. Some of the actions are move three glaciers in the frontier between Chile and Argentina, to extract 547 tons of gold.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/946839131

This will poison whole eco-systems!

The Jewelers of America are putting pressure on gold-mining companies to use ecologically safer methods of extraction. Tiffany ran a full-page ad in the NY Times asking them to. No response from the big conglomerates so far! Go to I think it's GreenKarat for more info.

Please sign this petition! This is the beginning of a whole movement to rein in the destructive gold-mining business. Buy your gold jewelry second-hand; or, have old gold jewelry melted down and re-fashioned! Until the mining industry CLEANS UP ITS ACT! It takes an average of 3 tons of usually-toxic waste -- to make just one gold wedding ring!

The giant Freeport mine is polluting West Papua's rivers and estuaries and a world heritage-protected national park. Documents leaked to an environmental group show that the world's largest gold and copper mine has dumped a billion tons of mine waste into surrounding rivers, polluting forests and river systems with heavy metals such as copper and arsenic.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050406EB.shtml