Environmental Protection & Zero Waste

Cross-posted from Common Dreams

By Lauren McCauley

Cross-posted from Common Dreams 

Press Release 

JAKARTA - April 12 - The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which claims to be the "world’s foremost business association dedicated to sustainable development", today warned Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL), Indonesia’s second largest pulp and paper producer, to clean up its act. The move is a result of APRIL’s ongoing large-scale destruction of Indonesia’s rainforest.

Cross-posted from Focus on the Global South

By Pablo Solon

There is no single answer, no single campaign nor single approach.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that avoids catastrophe, we need to:

• Leave more than two-thirds of the fossil fuel reserves under the soil;
• Stop the exploitation of tar sands, shale gas and coal;
• Support small, local, peasant and indigenous community farming while we dismantle big agribusiness that deforests and heats the planet;

Cross-posted from WLBZ 2

Cross-posted from the Organic Consumers Association

By Ronnie Cummins and Katherine Paul 

Whole Foods Market (WFM) is being praised in the media for announcing that it will become the first U.S. grocery chain to require that genetically engineered (GE) foods in its stores be labeled, by 2018. This is a victory for consumers and the GE labeling movement. And it’s a major setback for Monsanto, who for 20 years has worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to uphold the myth that GE foods and crops are “substantially equivalent” to non-GE foods, that they are perfectly safe, and shouldn’t require labels.

But let’s take a look at what led up to the announcement, and how the plan falls short.

Cross-posted from the New York Times

By Stephanie Strom

Whole Foods Market, the grocery chain, on Friday became the first retailer in the United States to require labeling of all genetically modified foods sold in its stores, a move that some experts said could radically alter the food industry.

Cross-posted from Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Days Two and Three:

Back-to-back 15 mile days leave marchers' bodies sore, and spirits soaring!

“Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of ‘making salt’ has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: César Chávez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement – one that spans the globe – seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems, with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.”

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

“Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of ‘making salt’ has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: César Chávez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement – one that spans the globe – seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems, with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.”

Cross-posted from Vital Systems

Dear friends,

There's an indigenous community in Ecuador that lives in a part of the Amazon where there are jaguars and more animal life than the whole of North America! It's an incredibly pristine, remote area and the whole ecosystem has been preserved. But the government is threatening to go in and look for oil.