Among Cuba's greatest achievements is its organic farming sector, writes Miguel Altieri. Developed in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, small agroecological farms now employ 300,000 campesinos and provide an abundance of healthy fruit and vegetables. But now US food and agribusiness corporations are eyeing up a multi-billion dollar business opportunity.
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In 1975 Indonesia invaded the small Pacific country of East Timor, writes John Pilger, and then massacred a third of its population to suppress demands for independence. Now unearthed documents show the genocide was supported by Australia so it could grab the oil and gas reserves of the Timor Sea. Despite East Timor's independence, won in 1999, Australia is still stealing its oil and gas revenues worth $5 billion and counting.
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Austrian timber giant Schweighofer claims to be working hard to ensure that the huge volumes of timber it buys from Romania's mountain forests are strictly legal, writes Katy Jenkyns. But an Ecostorm investigation has uncovered its purchase of illegally cut wood, its acceptance of fraudulent paperwork from suppliers, and the deep shadow of fear it casts over local communities.
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Campaigners are celebrating after defeating plans to build America’s largest open pit coal mine, writes Nick Engelfriend. In an epic 'David and Goliath' battle, Montana activists challenged the project, and all the politicians and businessmen that supported it, with fierce opposition, protests and demonstrations. The outcome spells hope for all in the fight against dirty energy.
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The term 'global warming' has a reassuring, comfortable sound, writes Jim Hansen. But paleoclimate data shows the reality could be anything but, with rapid climate oscillations, large, abrupt rises in sea level, major disruptions to ocean circulation, and massive superstorms. It may already be too late to forestall this dystopian future - but then it may not be. So let's act while we still can!
Read More... Gustavo Castro Soto and the rigged investigation into Berta Cáceres’s assassination
Cambodia: indigenous eco-defender released after five months jail on false charges
Organic agriculture, agroecology and the parallel reality of the GMO evangelist
Oxford researchers have quantified the benefits of the world becoming vegetarian, writes Marco Springmann. Their study shows that simple changes - like moving to diets low in meat and high in fruit and vegetables - could lead to significant reduction in mortality and health care costs, while cutting food sector greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds.
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Sharing tales of love is good for our souls, and allows us to be vulnerable with each other, writes Matt Hopwood. In his life changing journey of emotional exploration, he travelled over 1,500 miles in search of stories of the heart. He found them in abundance, along with tales of loss, pain, suffering, and isolation. And with that came a deeper sense of connection, and a means of personal and social transformation.
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Modern practices mean that more than ever, people are disconnected from nature, writes Damitha Rajapakse. In Sri Lanka - a biodiversity hotspot which is full of endemic plants with unique properties - a conservation programme is under way to teach the new generation about the rich heritage of native fruits which surrounds them.
Read More... In search of the unseen: an investigation into plastics in our oceans
Earth First! Winter Moot next weekend: nourishment, inspiration and solidarity for eco-activists
Since December 2011, when it became clear that the government was intent on its badger cull, Defra and Natural England have been flooded with FOI requests about how the culls would be set up, conducted and monitored. The notable success of Anna Dale in cutting through official obfuscation has implications for everyone trying to protect the environment and wildlife.
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For Saskatchewan, uranium is an important part of the economy, but for the province's indigenous peoples, the land is everything. It is filled with relationships between beings who dwell together in an interconnected web. Their traditional ecological knowledge is not just a set of terms or data, but a deep, broadly-viewed reality which contains systematic respect for all creation.
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Two heavily armed, UK registered ships are currently engaged in the transport of UK sourced plutonium across the Pacific, writes Tim Deere-Jones. Details of their safety inspection records, survey status, voyage routes and location have been suppressed in the interests of security but the lack of transparency breaches a number of international safety standards.
Read More... Dolphin selfies and performing whales: how our cultural narcissism is killing the planet
Federal Court must uphold our children's right to a viable future
Siberia's Heavenly Lake and 'small peoples' of the High North at risk from oil drilling
Koide Hiroaki has spent his entire career as a nuclear engineer, and has become a central figure in Japan's movement for the abolition of nuclear power plants. He met with Katsuya Hirano and Hirotaka Kasai to discuss the catastrophic nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima Daaichi in March 2011, and the crimes and cover-ups committed both before and after the event.
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Vandana Shiva is more than just a leading scientist, author and campaigner on green issues and anti-globalisation, writes Scott London. She is also among the most prominent of Mahatma Ghandi's intellectual heirs. In this interview, she discusses how this led her to be an outspoken voice on such crucial environmental issues as seed legacy, biopiracy and economic injustice.
Read More... Genocide, ecocide and the Empire of Chaos
Flint's water crisis is a blatant example of environmental injustice
George Catlin's original vision of national parks saw them as providing a refuge for 'man and beast' alike, writes Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, giving Indians a home in the 'freshness of their nature's beauty'. But soon the National Parks Service was violating promises, treaties and contracts as it perpetrated over a century of land theft from America's Indian tribes.
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The random, murderous violence we just saw inflicted on the people of Brussels is absolutely, categorically unacceptable, writes Chris Floyd. So too is the far greater violence routinely inflicted by rich, powerful countries against their innocent victims around the world, and especially in the oil-rich Middle East. To move away from a world of terror, we must make our outrage, and our compassion, inclusive.
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To understand how technology is used in the real world we must appreciate who owns and controls it, writes Colin Todhunter: whose interests it serves, and how it works in an economic system driven by profit, geopolitics and the compulsion to capture and control markets - while the monopolists proclaim a noble ideology of 'free choice' and 'democracy'.
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After beavers' reintroduction to Scotland, landowners have accused the native rodents of damaging the environment, causing floods, and worse, writes Louise Ramsay. But the public have rallied to the cause of these charming, beneficial creatures, leaving conservative landowners isolated. Could the shift in sentiment trigger long overdue change in the Scottish countryside?
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The lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Michigan is just the tip of a vast iceberg of lead contamination afflicting mainly urban black communities, writes Leif Fredrickson. A rigid 'race bar' on postwar suburban housing and mortgages left black families in inner cities, exposed to flaking lead paint in run down housing, leaded gasoline residues and lead pipework. Now is the time to correct this shocking historic injustice.
Read More... Resisting the corporate stranglehold on food and farming - is agroecology enough?
The Shaman's cure: a Gaian awakening
Harnessing the power of evolution in participatory seed breeding
Coffee may be grown all around the tropics, writes Fiona Hesselden, but it originates in just one place: the 'coffee rainforests' of the Ethiopian highlands. We depend on the wild plants for new genes and varieties, yet the forests are falling fast to the advance of farmers. To preserve the forests and all their biodiversity, the original people of the forest must receive their just rewards.
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After a succession of the hottest years and months ever recorded, climate is a hot topic, writes Liz Hutchins. But BBC1's 'Big Questions' climate change debate last Sunday completely missed the point. Instead of debating the only real question - how should we respond? - the BBC ran yet another repeat of the so-over 'believers versus deniers' ding-dong. Why do they still not get it?
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Our insatiable appetite for expensive coffee is causing a global trail of waste and destruction, writes Donnachadh McCarthy. Following the successful campaign for a 5p plastic bag levy, it's time to move on to a much larger 25p levy on disposable coffee cups - making those that profit from the waste carry the cost of its disposal.
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Barring a miracle Marco Rubio is set to be Trumped in the Republican primary tomorrow in Florida, his home state, putting an effective end to his campaign. But it's not for want of support from one of the US's biggest frackers, Devon energy, and its politically active CEO Larry Nichols. And with or without Rubio, Nichols's influence on the red states' energy policy is only going to get bigger.
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With industry spinning that glyphosate is harmful to health, if at all, only with co-formulants like tallowamine, the World Health Organisation's cancer agency IARC has just released a Q&A document (below) stating that 'pure' glyphosate poses similar cancer and genotoxicity risks as its formulations. Banning particular co-formulants, as proposed by some EU countries, does not solve the problem.
Read More... Berta Cáceres: her fight for human rights in Honduras continues
Five US states are leading the way in solar power initiatives
EDF's leaked Board Agenda: Zombie nuclear projects and 'beyond the grave' reactors
Colin Tudge reports on The College of Real Farming and Food Culture; a project designed to tackle the current issues in global food production. The current system is not fit for purpose but through a holistic approach and an overhaul of current mainstream agriculture, achieving a balance between feeding the world and conserving the environment is within grasp.
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EDF in the UK may be propelled by its disastrous nuclear ambitions, writes Chris Goodall. But across the Atlantic it's another story: the company is the US's biggest wind developer, and selling its power, profitably, for under 40% of the price it has been promised for Hinkley C, including federal tax credits.
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ExxonMobil has long known that climate change is real and dangerous, write Louise Rouse & Naomi Ages, while denying it in public and supporting climate change deniers. Now they accuse their critics of 'chilling' climate science and the search for solutions. The truth is the precise opposite.
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The much-derided Common Fisheries Policy must be one of the EU's most unpopular aspects, write Bryce Stewart & Griffin Carpenter. But in fact it has been a notable success, reflecting public concern over bycatch discards and restoring sustainability to Europe's fishing grounds, and profitability to a long declining industry.
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The Green Party is the only national party in Westminster to be denied a Party Political Broadcast by the BBC, write Bennet Francis and Rupert Read. The decision reveals a massive failure of impartiality against which there is no right of independent appeal - save to the court of public opinion.
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JP Morgan's announcement that it's pulling out of coal is purest doublespeak, writes Assaad Razzouk. But it's not the only financier to engage in climate hypocrisy, as banks prepare to lend $5 trillion to build 2,440 new coal power stations. To deliver the Paris Agreement they - and the loans that would finance them - must be cancelled.
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The world is in the grip of a massive wave of militarism of which most of us are blissfully ignorant, writes John Pilger. When did mainstream media last tell you about the US's $1 trillion nuclear weapon renewal? NATO's massive build up of military power on Russia's eastern frontier? The encirclement of China by nuclear-armed US bases? The world is at war. Pass it on!
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Since the Obama-Clinton coup in Honduras the murder of eco-defenders and other activists has become a routine instrument of government, writes Dan Beeton. We must demand an end to the killings, the restoration of political freedom, and a halt to the tide of corporate megaprojects - beginning with the Agua Zarca dam.
Read More... Labour needs a new policy on Hinkley C and nuclear power
Shocking reality of climate change kicks in - but who's listening?
Andrea Wulf's book about the remarkable 19th century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt is welcome, opportune and a pleasure to read, writes Matt Mellen, packed as it is with high adventure and amazing discoveries. We have much to learn from him today in tackling the world's environmental crises; reading this book is an excellent - and enjoyable - way to begin.
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The main engine of economic exploitation is the financial system's ever increasing extraction of value through interest payments, according to economist Michael Hudson. Paul Craig Roberts finds his analysis all too accurate, as the over-financialized economies of western countries head down a spiral of poverty, decline, injustice and despair.
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Agriculture is big business and with the EU pumping money at the sector, the corporate profiteers are holding all the aces, writes Chris Lang. The documentary ‘Land Grabbing’ investigates what happens when well-financed agro-investors take over rural communities' land and water.
Read More... Green Parties, Green Future: lessons from history for Green politics
The Garden Bridge will offer a new kind of green space in the heart of the city, strengthening London's status as the greenest capital in Europe, writes Bee Emmott. It will benefit the health and wellbeing of local communities and visitors alike.
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The government is right to extend the badger cull into Dorset, writes Mel Squires in this 'right of reply' article. While culling badgers is only part of the solution of bovine TB, along with annual TB testing of cattle and badger vaccination, it is a necessary measure in areas of high risk.
Read More...Today UK campaigners against burning biomass for power will deliver a 110,000 signature petition to DECC to protest at government subsidies for the practice. But in this 'Right of Reply' article Matthew Rivers, chairman of Drax Biomass, argues that biomass combustion is sustainable, benign, and helps to conserve forests worldwide.
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This year's Community Energy Fortnight is taking place at a strange time, writes Jonathon Porritt, with the entire renewable energy industry under government attack as never before. What can we do about it? For a start, by joining in some of the hundreds of events that are taking place across the UK!
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Solar energy is not just about electricity, writes Anne Wheldon. It's also about heat - and three innovative projects highlighted by the Ashden Awards are showing how solar heat can dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of food processing and farming, while helping agricultural businesses increase profits.
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Satish Kumar, environment activist and editor-in-chief at Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, is giving a talk at Alternatives on 14 March about his personal journey both spiritual and physical.
Read More...A day of workshops, speakers and updates on the climate crisis organised by Friends of the Earth, PCS and This Changes Everything. Join them in London on 30th January to plan the next step in the fight to protect people and planet after the Paris climate talks.
Read More...To celebrate 25 years at the forefront of environmental education, Schumacher College are launching a new short course programme: Soul, Spirit and Story.
Read More...Join Lead's highly experiential programme for experienced, mid to senior professionals and sustainability practitioners who want to increase their ability to make positive change in the world around them.
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A coalition of fishing, consumer, and environmental groups are suing the FDA for its 'unlawful' approval of Aquabounty's GM salmon, as it relied on treating the fish as an 'animal drug' under a 1938 law, and ignored serious risks to wild salmon and fishing communities.
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An unprecedented coalition of 20 Attorneys General from US states and the Virgin Islands have combined to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the deception they have inflicted on customers and the wider public over climate change, writes Lauren McCauley, in a move hailed as a 'turning point' in the battle to save the climate.
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Groups representing over 5 million Nigerians are resisting Monsanto's attempt to introduce GM maize and cotton, writes Vanessa Amaral-Rogers. With growing evidence of harm to human health and environment, and failing GM crops in other countries, they say Monsanto's applications must be refused.
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The tiny Pacific state of the Marshall Islands has given oral evidence to the International Court of Justice against all nuclear armed states for failing to pursue disarmament. The UK, India and Pakistan were present to deny the charges, but the US, Russia, France, China, Israel and North Korea have denied the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction.
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MPs today grilled EDF Energy supremo Vincent de Rivaz over the troubled Hinkley C nuclear plant in Somerset. He insisted that the project was definitely going ahead - but refused to say when the 'final investment decision' was due. Confused? Bewildered? Frustrated? So were the MPs.
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The small state of Vermont is changing the face of US food as companies hasten to comply with its GMO labeling rule which comes into effect in July 2016. Mars and General Mills - and now Kelloggs and ConAgra - are the latest companies to announce their labels will comply with Vermont law US-wide - and many more are sure to follow.
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Backed up the Information Commissioner, DECC refuses to release the documents it sent to the European Commission to support its massive subsidy package for the Hinkley C nuclear plant, writes Terry McAlister. But now the case will go before a tribunal which could order their release.
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For the second year running CO2 emissions flatlined even as the global economy was growing at around 3%, writes Alex Kirby. But sharply rising temperatures show the need for further massive renewable energy deployment to actually bring emissions down.
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The European Union's carbon market, the EU ETS, is meant to cut pollution in a cost effective way. But a new report shows that it handed the EU's biggest emitters a €24bn bumper payout over six years. Not so much the 'polluter pays' principle but the precise opposite: people pay, and polluters profit.
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Less than two weeks after the murder of Honduran eco defender Berta Caceres, another indigenous leader has been shot dead during the violent police and military eviction of 150 families from the settled community of Rio Chiquito. International funders of the controversial Agua Zarca hydro project are now backing out..
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A dusty film of pollution is muting the reflective whiteness of Greenland's pristine icecap and making it vulnerable to accelerated melting rates, writes Tim Radford. And as warming continues, the declining reflectivity of the ice is accelerating the process.
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Oil giant BP is the UK's single biggest EU lobbyist, spending over £2 million reaching out to European policy makers in 2014, new figures show. But citing hard times, the company has dropped its controversial sponsorship of the London's Tate Galleries - and more such branding deals may bite the dust.
Read More... Chlorpyrifos 'may threaten survival' of Forager bees
China's electric vehicle boost drives global transport revolution
Peru: Amazon tribe orders oil company out after devastating spills