News Roundup

  • Yusof Basiron, CEO of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, asks (ON HIS BLOG) that scientists compare the biodiversity of palm oil plantations to other agricultural habitats, not the rainforest they’re actually destroying. Corey’s not happy.
  • Spending time in nature is “like a vacation for the prefontal cortex.” Duuude.
  • Here’s an interesting piece from Fortune about the increasing ties between big NGOs (WWF, CI, Sierra Club) and Fortune 500 companies (Clorox, Coca Cola). On the one hand, it’s great that large companies seem to think that consumers want “greener” corporations. On the other hand, many NGOs are worried that taking donations from big companies may make them “run the risk of letting money cloud our judgment.”
  • Some amazing photographs from a European Wildlife Photography award (beware severed monkey heads).
  • Interesting thoughts on the unintended consequences of the ESA from ESABlawg. I wonder if ESA reform will happen in the next eight years.
Posted by Tim on November 18th, 2008 • • Add a comment
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News Roundup

  • Some captive Black rhinos have been released in an undisclosed location in Kenya.
  • Huh? … Oh, there’s a meeting happening right now in Barcelona, the World Conservation Congress. Here’s a statement (pdf) from Dr Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the CBD.
  • Ted Turner and some other bigwigs have announced a set of criteria for sustainable tourism (“Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria“) so you can tell the difference between green and greenwashed.
  • The mammals, they are dooooooomed. One in four are facing extinction now Red Listed as vulnerable or endangered.
  • The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre has relaunched its database of protected areas. The press release focuses on making all their data available on-line, though it doesn’t touch on whether they’ve actually updated the database or not. There’s a book to go along with it, with pretty pictures (okay, okay, those pictures aren’t in the book. But they’re nice).
  • “Indigenous forest dwellers in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, have rejected a proposal to turn 80,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of the land into an oil palm plantation.”
Posted by Tim on October 6th, 2008 • • Add a comment
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News Roundup

  • BLDGBLOG discusses the graffiti for butterflies project: “Is there a burgeoning field of graphic design for other species? Post-human signage and symbology?”
  • Alright, now that I’ve covered designers, how about musicians? “A Senegalese griot (drummer) confirmed the likeness and — amazingly — was able to pick individual whales from André’s recordings through their distinctive rhythmic structures.”
  • I’ll see my African drummer and raise it a former synthesizer player for George Harrison, the Doors, and others: having recorded more than 3,500 hours of “soundscapes” from areas of high biodiversity, Bernie Krause they “looked like a musical score…each animal had its own niche, its own acoustic territory, much like instruments in an orchestra.”
  • Tropical forest good, oil palm plantations bad.
Posted by Tim on September 16th, 2008 • • Add a comment
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