EarthAction

Where have all the honey bees gone?

What is it:

Colony Collapse Disorder is the name given to a phenomenon first noticed by large-scale bee keepers in 2006 and 2007 that is estimated to have impacted one third of all honey bee colonies in the United States. 

Hives that suffer from CCD incur a loss of the majority of their adult worker-bee population and are characterized by a hive empty of bees yet full of honey, bee young and even the queen bee.The bees from these colonies appear healthy until, one day, bee keepers find a hive with no adult worker bees. No dead bees are found near the hive nor are there any signs as to where the bees disappear to, all that is known is that they leave behind what looks to be an otherwise healthy hive.

What Causes it?

 The causes of Colony Collapse disorder are debated, with no entirely conclusive study yet to be conducted. Some proposed causes include:

• poisoning from pollinating pesticide treated crops
• poor nutrition from altered foraging patterns/lack of diversified food sources
• increased presence of the honey bee pest varroa mites
• new viruses targeting bee immune systems

Most scientists and bee keepers argue that CCD may be the result of increased stress due to many of the above listed factors. However, all agree that threats to the honey bee population are threats to our global food system as we know it.

Why is it important:
Bees aren’t just busy pollinating flowers, they are the unsung heroes in food systems across the globe, pollinating many crops for human consumption. In the United States our industrial food system is supported by a network of bee keepers who truck bees up and down highways pollinating everything from Maine blueberries to Florida oranges and California almonds. Without them, food supplies world wide are in danger of collapsing.
And CCD isn’t just happening to bees in the United States, honey bees in The UK have been reportedly suffering from CCD and in 2011 the United Nations issued a statement declaring CCD a global concern reaching from US beekeepers to Chinese beekeepers.

What can we do:

• Urge secretary Tom Vilsack of the US Department of Agriculture to continue to fund research to combat CCD using this online messaging system from the National Resources Defense Council. (Tip- customize the message, tell Tom Vilsack why this issue is important to you, for maximum impact!)
• Read these tips from the NRDC on how to make a bee-friendly garden and which pesticides are commonly known to impact bee health. Inform other gardeners and farmers in your community of the pesticides on the list!
• Learn to keep bees (even in the city) to add to a growing number of small scale bee keepers invested in healthy honey bees across the globe!
• Read about what the EPA is doing to protect honey bees in the United States.

Written by EarthAction Intern Walker Dunn
Sources and Further Information:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/News/docs.htm?docid=15572
http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/bees.asp
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in720

Image Source through Creative Commons Liscensing

Middle Photo by: Dan Solely (c) turtlephoto.org 

Pay-as-you-go Business Innovation Makes Renewable Energy Accessible

Written and Researched by EarthAction Intern Larry O'Connor

The Economist magazine recently published an article about a company that has developed an interesting way to profit from providing electricity to poor, sunny regions around the world. The company is based out of London and called Eight19, which refers how long it takes sunlight to reach the earth - 8 minutes and 19 seconds.

The Economist article focuses on Eight19’s “Pay as you go” solar program, where a family will be able to pay an upfront deposit of $10 US to purchase a solar cell and battery that have the ability to light two small rooms for 7 hours per day while charging one cell phone. The users then must purchase "scratch cards" using their cell phones to receive a reference number that will activate the devices. The "scratch cards" and reference numbers are sent via text message. Users can purchase any amount that they can pay for: a day, a week, or a month. These small purchases work toward paying off the cost of the device. After purchasing approximately eighty dollars’ worth of scratch cards, the customer will have paid off the entire cost of the battery and will have complete ownership of the unit.

Customers can then use their $80 US investment on a down payment to move up the "Indigo Energy Escalator" to obtain a larger solar battery unit, or they can just keep their solar unit and not spend any money on electricity. This energy escalator has four different levels, ranging from 3 to 80 watt capacity. The 80 watt solar cell generates light for a phone, four rooms, a radio, a TV, and a sewing machine.

 

This process was recently tested on a few hundred Kenyan families. Over the next two months Eight19 plans to release 4,000 solar kits in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. Many people in this region already have light and some electricity fueled by paraffin - a harmful waxy substance that comes from hydrocarbons used for lighting candles (pictured aboved). The most important aspect in this process is that these incremental payments are similar to what potential customers currently pay for paraffin to light lamps and the cost of charging a cell phone at a store.

Potential Implications of “Pay as you go solar”

Can Organic Farming Feed the World?

Written By: Yelena Kobaliya, EarthAction Intern

The question on many consumers' minds while staring at an array of beautiful produce trucked to their local grocer from Mexico, California, Chile and other far-away locales is, exactly how much better for me are the tomatoes labelled "organic" over "conventional"? Are the health benefits worth the steep price tag?

They may be, but a major study by the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, PA concluded that the main advantage of organic produce over conventional is not in organic food's health benefits for individual consumers. The 30-year study shows that there are major ecological benefits to organic agriculture which can impact more than the individual pushing the shopping cart.

It has often been argued that organic agriculture cannot provide enough for the world. Rodale Institute’s study contradicts this point of view. Comparisons of conventional and organic plots did not show any difference in total wheat, corn or soy production per acre. Moreover, during the drought years, organic plots provided 30% more harvest than conventional plots.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Mark Smallwood, Rodale Institute’s executive director, stated: "If we're looking to feed the world for the next 50 years, conventional can do it. But if we're looking at feeding the world for the next 1500 years, we must switch over to organic."

The usage of petroleum-product contributes to the sustainability gap between conventional and organic agriculture. Even though both methods use diesel fuel for farm equipment, some 41% of conventional systems' petroleum consumption comes from using harmful, nitrogen-based fertilizers.

Sustainable soil health is another factor which differentiates the two systems. Conventional agriculture relies on crude-oil-dependent artificial fertilizers for the soil's macronutrient content. The use of such heavy-duty pesticides has been referred to as the pesticide treadmill, a dangerous cycle which, once begun, is difficult to come out of.  When dwindling oil supplies or rising fossil fuel prices begin to impact the availability and price of synthetic fertilizers, it will be the organic farms that will remain prosperous.

The summary of the Rodale Institute's findings are:

• Organic yields match or surpass conventional yields.

• Organic yields outperform conventional yields in years of drought.

• Organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.

• Organic farming uses 45 percent less energy and is more efficient.

• Conventional agricultural systems produce 40 percent more greenhouse gases.

• Organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional farming systems.

Mark Smallwood shed light on the high cost of organic food explaining, "one of the reasons is that there aren't enough organic farms. It's because demand is higher than supply." To combat the discrepancy in supply and demand the Rodale Institute proposes several policy recommendations based on their study; to expand organic research funding, to ensure fair and appropriate risk management tools, to meet market demand, to create a robust organic transition assistance program, and to reward environmental benefits.

Eric Schlosser on the benefits of organic farming: http://aol.it/pc693W

Image source: Organic Farming Research Foundation

To learn more about the Rodale Institute, visit www.rodaleinstitute.org

Please sign on to protect a forest and Indigenous rights in Cambodia

Mao Chanthoeun and hundreds of other Kuy villagers call themselves Cambodia's "avatars." Like the Na'vi people in the "Avatar" film, the Kuy are defending their forest against mining and other destructive practices. Photo by Samrang Pring, Reuters.

In Cambodia, some 200,000 mostly Indigenous Kuy villagers are desperately trying to preventthe destruction of Prey Lang ("Our Forest"), the last large primary forest of its kind on the Indochina peninsula. Generations of Kuy people have protected the forest with its sacred areas, places for gathering fruits, medicinal plants, housing materials, and resin. Some 300 villages and family rice fields are scattered through a large buffer zone of secondary forest that surrounds Prey Lang. Their use of forest resources is sustainable, but now their livelihoods and the life of the forest are under attack.

The government has issued a dizzying patchwork of land concessions to road builders, mining companies, and agro-industries. Bulldozers are slicing huge swaths through the forest, clear-cutting enormous blocks of land for rubber and other plantations. Studies show that Indigenous forest-dwelling communities do the best job of protecting forests. Our best bet for saving Prey Lang is to support the Kuy people's rights and their management of the forest they know best. 

Join us:  

Global Response, the action program of Cultural Survival, and EarthAction, a global network of over 2,000 organizations, are working together in support of the Prey Lang Community Network to protect and save their forest. On our websites below you can find links to communicate with Cambodian officials to urge them to cancel existing land concessions and create a sustainable management program with the permanent participation of the Prey Lang peoples. We ask your organization to please share this information widely, with other organizations, with your members, and in your newsletters.

How You Can Help:  

Below is a sign-on letter for organizations, available in PDF here.  Please add your organization, and help the Kuy people protect the unique and threatened Prey Lang forest. To sign on, please email Danielle@cs.org by January 31  and include the name of the signee, organization, and country you are based in.   

For more information and online action pages, please see visit: 

Cultural Survival, EarthAction, and Prey Lang Community Network. 

Sincere thanks and good wishes to you in your important work for our planet and all its peoples. 

Lois Barber, Director 

EarthAction Network

PO Box 63

Amherst, MA 01004

Tel +413 549 8118

 

Paula Palmer, Director               

Global Response Program                   

Cultural Survival, Inc.                      

PO Box 7490                              

Boulder CO 80306 USA                   

Tel +303/444-0306

 _____________________________________________________________  

Dear Ambassador Kosal Sea, Prime Minister Samech Hun Sen,   

 

As international human rights and environmental organizations, we are deeply concerned that Cambodia has lost almost all of its primary forests.  According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, primary forests covered 70 percent of Cambodia's land mass just 40 years ago. Tragically, these magnificent forests have shrunk to only 3.1 percent of the nation's territory today. One of the remaining forests, Prey Lang, is in danger of being lost as more and more concessions are granted to agro-industries and mining companies.

 

Prey Lang's rich store of biological diversity, unique on the Indochina peninsula, is reason enough to protect it. But there are other reasons, as well.  Over 200,000 people depend on the forest as a source of fruits, nuts, medicinal plants, housing materials, clean drinking water, fish, and resin. Prey Lang provides ecological services that benefit millions of people, serving as a vital source of water for Cambodia's rice-growing region and for the Mekong Delta. 

The people who live in villages surrounding Prey Lang have banded together to save the forest.  Many of these people are Indigenous Kuy, whose rights are specified in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  As an endorser of the Declaration, Cambodia acknowledges Indigenous Peoples' right to free, prior, and informed consent for projects that affect their lands and livelihoods, yet the Kuy have not been consulted concerning land concessions in and surrounding Prey Lang. Indeed, they have clearly demonstrated their opposition to the land concessions through public protests and petitions.

As supporters of environmental protection and Indigenous Peoples' rights, the following organizations join the Prey Lang Network in urging you to cancel existing land concessions and other development projects in the greater Prey Lang area, ban new concessions, and create a sustainable management program with the permanent participation of the Prey Lang Network.

Thank you for considering the views of the international community, recognizing our common commitment to environmental protection and human rights.

 

Respectfully, 

(list of organizations)

_____________________________________________________________

Does the Kuy people's situation sound familiar?

If your organization represents or partners with Indigenous communities that are struggling to prevent environmental destruction and defend their rights, learn how to request a Global Response Campaign here. Click here to receive Global Response action alerts by email.

If you'd like more information about becoming a Partner Organization in the EarthAction Network and receiving action alerts on global environment, development, peace and human rights issues, click here to JOIN EarthAction. 

Cultural Survival's Global Response Program organizes effective international letter-writing campaigns to protect the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples.  See action alerts for adults and youth at www.cs.org

Click here to view and share EarthAction's email action alert.

Make a Year End Donation to EarthAction

This year, I’m going to be singing your praises a lot. 

2012 is EarthAction’s 20th Anniversary, and believe me, when I talk about who deserves the credit for this unique organization, supporters like you will be at the top of the list.  It’s a simple fact that EarthAction wouldn’t exist without your help.

And right now, there is an urgent situation that requires EarthAction.

The situation is truly desperate. Cambodia's Prey Lang (pronounced ‘Pray Long’) forest, the last large primary forest of its kind on the Indochinese peninsula, is at great risk of being destroyed. About 200,000 people, mostly indigenous Kuy, live in or around the forest and are dependent on it for their livelihoods and culture. The Prey Lang Community Network is fighting to save Prey Lang and has asked EarthAction for our help.

Their story is a lot like the movie ‘Avatar’. The local forest people have repeatedly petitioned the Cambodian government to protect the forest. Instead, the government is allowing companies, the military, and illegal groups to make a profit by destroying it.

The best hope for saving Prey Lang is if people around the world contact Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in support of the requests of the local Kuy communities. We need to let Hun Sen know the whole world is watching, and urge him to do everything in his power to protect the Prey Lang forest.

Your help now will enable us in January to produce over 3,000 Action Kits about the Prey Lang forest and distribute them to our Partner Organizations and key contacts in over 165 countries. By providing ‘ready-to-use’ materials to these organizations, our Action Kits will  generate increased, focused, effective action right where it is needed—when it is needed.

Saving the Prey Lang forest will be the best way we can start EarthAction’s 20th Anniversary year. And your generous donation of $50, 100, $250, $1,000 or more will have an effect far beyond its amount because it will help generate action from thousands of people around the globe.

I will be so grateful for you help.

Prey Lang is the most urgent, but it is not the only issue we’ll be tackling in 2012.  With your help, we we’ll continue with the other environment, peace, and justice issues you care about, including:

·      Climate stabilization
·      The 20th Anniversary of the Earth Summit
·      Securing the world’s nuclear stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium
·      Keeping the U.S. from expanding production at 3 nuclear weapons facilities and building more nuclear bombs
·      Educating children, especially girls, worldwide
·      Protecting the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) from Congressional attacks that will weaken its ability to protect our land, air, water, and our health.

 In addition, in 2012, EarthAction will continue to be the sponsor of the Elder’s Project preserving and continuing the wisdom knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of Colombia.

We will also continue to sponsor the highly effective 2020 Action, sending out monthly Action postcards on peace and the environment throughout the U.S.

This is the time of year when many of us make our most significant donations.  I hope you’ll include EarthAction on your list of meaningful causes to support. 

Sincerely,

Lois Barber
Co-founder& President
EarthAction

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More Links...

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Make a year-end donation >>

UPDATE ON KHIMKI: Protestors filing lawsuit against builders of highway that would destroy Khimki Forest

Here's an update from our friends at Movement to Defend Khimki Forest. Lawmakers have proposed narrowing the planned highway through the Khimki Forest from four lanes to two lanes, but that simply wouldn't be enough to save the rich wildlife, endangered species, and beloved birch trees from deforestation. The Movement to Defend Khimki Forest is now filling a lawsuit against the highway builders, PO 'DorInzhStroyProyect' LLC in an effort to save the threatened ecosystem. Please read more below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lawsuit against PO 'DorInzhStroyProyect' LLC

November 3, 2011 
Press release 

Due to Khimki Forest defenders’ struggle, the width of the road on the main sections of Moscow – St. Petersburg toll motorway has been cut from 8 to 4 traffic lanes and now is 26 meters (http://princip1.livejour nal.com/17998.html). However, it can’t help solve the problem of destruction of Khimki Forest as an ecosystem.

The main task of forest defenders remains the revision of construction project and the change of the motorway’s route to spare Khimki Forest. The independent expertise has shown the existence of over 10 alternative variants for the route of Moscow – St. Petersburg motorway, which can solve the existing transport crisis on the territory of Khimki town district.

Our suit must show the total uselessness of road construction across Khimki Forest.

The builders have themselves accepted the absurd nature of the road, when they have got permission for construction of the motorway with 4 traffic lanes. It proves once more that the road isn’t destined for solution of transport problem, but rather for theft of budget funds.

PO ‘DorInzhStroyProyect’ LLC during preparation works for road construction has used budget funds, while the income from the toll motorway will go to private NWCC LLC, partly belonging to oligarch Arkady Rotenberg (http://www.ecmo.ru/data/Jul2011/Vinci_a_cover_for_oligarchs_ru.pdf).

The contractor in violation of permission fo r construction has felled the opening more than 100 meters wide, that is 4 times more than written in the project.

This violation became possible due to belated receipt of permission for construction and the lack of state construction supervision. The developer in violation of acting town planning legislation didn’t inform authorized organs on the beginning of construction works and was fined for that on 100000 ruble (http://princip1.livejournal.com/18829.html).

At the moment of the cutting the developer lacked (besides permission for construction) an order for fulfillment of ground works and a cutting ticket.

Most transport problems arise due to the lack of unified town planning policy. For example, there is no acting general plan today in Khimki (http://princip1.livejournal.com/22224.html).

The old general plan, which acted in town Khimki until 2009, didn’t include the toll motorway Moscow – St. Petersburg on the route, where the opening was later cut. We believe that the lack of the general plan in Khimki is among the causes, why the developers cut 4 times more forest area, than they should have done according to the project.

We intend to suit PO ‘DorInzhStroyProyect’ LLC in the court. 

For more information, visit:

Movement to Defend Khimki Forest
www.khimkiforest.org
www.ecmo.ru

Map Photo by OpenStreetMap Contributors
Protester Photo by Daniel Beilinson/Coalition "For the Forests of Moscow Region!"

UPDATE: Cultural Survival/Global Response Selects the Prey Lang Issue for its Next Campaign

In August, EarthAction brought global attention to the Prey Lang forest issue in Cambodia. The Cambodian government is allowing companies, the military, and illegal groups to make a profit by destroying the ancient Prey Lang forest. Indigenous Kuy communities, who live in or around Prey Lang, have been fighting to protect the forest, the source of their livelihoods and culture.

We are very pleased that the Prey Lang issue has been selected as the next Cultural Survival/Global Response campaign. Cultural Survival, an organization with a consultative status with the United Nations, has partnered with indigenous communities around the world to help them defend their cultures, lands, and languages for nearly 40 years. Just like EarthAction, Global Response was launched at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Cultural Survival's Global Response Program will develop a campaign that will include action alerts, maps, photos, and additional articles and links to other websites and resources for the campaign. The action alerts will also be published in the winter issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly magazine, which will be released in mid-December.

For more information about Cultural Survival's Global Response Program activities, please visit www.cs.org

Avatar Activists Photograph by: AFP, Tang Chhin Sothy

Spreading The Word On Biochar

by: Alexandra Reissig

What if there existed a material that could help solve world hunger, fight climate change, and offer a solution for energy shortages to boot? Recent studies on biochar say that it may be just the product, and here’s the kicker: it has been around for at least 2,000 years. It is a solid material produced from the carbonization of organic waste. Extremely high in carbon content, its uses range from replenishing exhausted soil to sequestering excess CO2 out of the atmosphere. Recent discoveries into its uses, both locally and globally, have shown it to be a viable material for an environmentally sustainable future.

Biochar is essentially charcoal, produced when biomass is heated in a low oxygen environment in a pyrolysis process. This process takes dry biomass and heats it at extreme temperatures and at a very low oxygen level. It is very similar to what happens naturally to soil that has been exposed to forest fires: the charred remains are more healthy and nutrient rich. Of the total amount of carbon that goes into the pyrolysis process, half goes into an energy carrying system that can be generated into biofuel. The other half of the carbon is fixed in biochar: a charcoal-like material that can be used as fertilizer to help increase crop yields, prevent run-off of nutrients and fertilizers, retain moisture in the soil and replenish exhausted soils with organic carbon.

Featured Partner Organization: Earth Protect

Earth Protect

Earth Protect, Inc. was established in 2007 by a team of Grant Barbeito, a filmmaker and co-owner and founder of Plant it Film Productions, and Carol Barbeito, a recognized expert in leading and managing organizations. Earthprotect.com is a worldwide social networking web site for those interested in the environment with a focus on visitor uploaded and linked videos. These videos are meant to raise awareness worldwide to inspire actions toward achieving a more sustainable and healthy environment. Earth Protect’s mission is to connect individuals, communities, government and organizations on environmental issues through multi-media channels.

Earth Protect’s web site will:

• Increase awareness of the need to adapt behaviors to the changing environment
• Empower users through the process of creating and sharing videos and films on the environment
• Connect people to resources for environmental information and organizations
• Lead activists to more informed action
  

Earth Protect also helps people find green businesses from which they can obtain needed services and goods.

For more information about Earth Protect and its activities, please visit: www.EarthProtect.com

Sponsorship for Journalists to Attend the UNCCD COP 10, Changwon, Republic of Korea

Media Alert: Sponsorship for Journalists to Attend the UNCCD COP 10, Changwon, Republic of Korea

The UNCCD secretariat will sponsor the participation of a total of four developing country journalists, drawn from the Africa, Asia & the Pacific and the Latin America & the Caribbean regions, to the tenth session of the Conference of the Parties that will take place in Changwon, Republic of Korea, from 10-21October 2011. The secretariat will cover the travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the conference.

Journalists wishing to be considered for such sponsorship should submit the following:
a) An article with their byline on one of the issues covered by the Convention, specifically, combatting desertification and land degradation and mitigating the effects of drought
b) an article with their byline that has been published in a reputable media outlet; a global media outlet is a distinct advantage
c) a letter of support from the journalist’s bureau chief or primary media for which they are reporting

Applications received by midnight, Friday, 30 September 2011, will be considered. The candidates selected will be informed by Monday, 3 October 2011. As indicated in the registration document, applicants should be able to travel so as to arrive in Changwon by 9 October 2011.

The candidates selected will participate in a half-day media briefing on the COP10 session, which will take place from 8:30am-12:45pm on Monday, 10 October. Independence of the media is guaranteed in the coverage of the COP10 session, but journalists are expected to dedicate their time to the coverage the event.

Requests for sponsorship should be emailed to: press@unccd.int, with the following subject line: Application for Sponsorship to UNCCD COP10.