A unified scientific approach has been called for to help protect one of the most threatened ecosystems on earth. LAURA BRIGGS learns more about the unique ecosystem known as seagrass beds
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This World Fisheries Day, a new report shows how the 'rights-based approach' to fisheries governance is in fact a mechanism for depriving indigenous and subsistence fisherfolk of their traditional waters, write Astrid Alexandersen, Sif Juhl & Jonathan Munk Nielsen, and transferring them to corporations and economic elites. It must be replaced with a 'human rights approach'.
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Limiting climate change is just the start of what we need to do to forestall a runaway cascade of species extinctions, write Bill Laurance & Paul Ehrlich. We must also reverse the destruction and fragmentation of key wildlife habitats, constrain our over-consumption of natural resources, stabilise human numbers - and elect leaders determined to prioritise these issues.
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A government-led shrimp farming project meant to tackle extreme poverty in northern Sabah, Malaysian, won local support in 2010 by promising job opportunities for impoverished indigenous communities. Six years on, mangrove forests local people depend on for food, materials and income are closed off and being cleared - but the jobs have yet to materialise.
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The long term problems of what to do with nuclear waste remain entirely unsolved, writes Andrew Blowers. Yet governments and the nuclear industry continue to peddle their untenable 'bury and forget' policy of deep geological disposal, which only unloads the toxic legacy of modern day nuclear power and weapons onto uncountable future generations.
Read More... Letter from Marrakesh: is China the world's new climate leader?
The TPP is dead: we the People defeated transnational corporate power
Nuclear bomb test veterans' long wait for justice: the last battle
An estimated 12 million tonnes of plastic flows into our oceans each year so no wonder we're facing one of the biggest litter crises our planet has ever seen. LAURA BRIGGS reports
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Seaweed is known for its culinary uses and has seen a renaissance in past years thanks to its health claims and a distinctive taste - but there are more ecological benefits to seaweed that currently remain untapped.
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The Green Party's new 'Green Creates' exhibition runs from 19 to 24 October at Hoxton Arches, London showcasing the work of the likes of Ralph Steadman, Grayson Perry, Gavin Turk, Andy Goldsworthy, Lesley Hilling and Craig Jones. Their donated pieces on the theme of 'Green Voices' will be auctioned to raise funds for the party. GARY COOK takes a preview
Read More... Digital Disconnect and its adverse impact on how (or whether) we engage with nature
The construction of the Don Sahong Dam in Laos PDR must be halted until full information on the project's impacts - in particular the fate of millions of fish that migrate each year through the Hou Sahong channel now being dammed - has been published, writes the Save the Mekong Coalition in this open letter sent today to the project developers.
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People power was at the forefront of UN talks on an global treaty for transnational corporations and human rights last week in Geneva, writes Amelia Collins. The fact that so many countries - led by South Africa and Ecuador - voiced their unequivocal support for legally binding rules, sets exactly the right tone for an ambitious and far-reaching negotiation.
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As the nuclear juggernaut drives the destruction of the Cumbria coast at Sellafield with nuclear waste dumps, boreholes, dredged-out rivers and a massive new nuclear power station, Marianne Birkby recalls ancient legends of the Woodwose, the Green Man, and the Beast of Beckermet. Can these forces of untamed nature be called upon to combat the growing nuclear menace?
Read More... #AxeDrax: campaigners unite for climate justice against coal and biofueled deforestation
Responsible advertisers must boycott climate-sceptic Mail, Sun, Times, Telegraph, Express
Corporations rule the world? Not quite. But we must stop them while we still can!
After decades of travelling the globe documenting environmental issues, UK photographer Edward Parker has turned his lens closer to home with a new book on the Ancient Trees of the National Trust. He talks to Arts Editor, GARY COOK
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British impressionist, comedian, actor and musician Alistair McGowan is also a staunch environmentalist - he doesn't even drive a car. He tells TIM SAUNDERS we should all be doing more to help save the planet and that the environmental costs of the proposed new runway at Heathrow are not worth the promised economic benefits
Read More... Vicky Tauli-Corpuz: 'The better protected areas are those where indigenous peoples live!'
Arctic warming: Greenland's ‘abnormal' Manhattan-sized ice shelf breakaway
The 'Global Redesign Initiative', a project of the World Economic Forum, aims to replace UN-based intergovernmental decision-making with unaccountable 'multi-stakeholder governance' run by and for corporations, writes Margi Prideaux. What future for nature and people in this brave new world? Generate profits for investors, or face extinction or exclusion to the margins of existence.
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To embrace the Earth as truly alive is a step too far even for many committed environmentalists, writes Charles Eisenstein: worried that others may perceive us as unscientific, childish, woolly-headed and ridiculous. But it's a step we must take: in refusing to recognise the living Gaia that is both our creator and our home, we accept and perpetuate the philosophy of her destroyers.
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Members of the food movement share an infectious vision, writes Jonathan Latham - one which is constructive, convivial, classless, raceless, international, and embraces the whole world. Unled yet inspirational, it rests on a novel, harmonious philosophy that combines science, recognition of planetary boundaries, and the universal need for wholesome sustenance.
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There's no such thing as 'healthy food' if it's not produced by sustainable farming systems on living soils, Patrick Holden told the recent 'Food: The Forgotten Medicine' conference. But after 70 years of industrial farming, there's a huge job to be done to restore our depleted soils and the impoverished genetic diversity of our seeds and crops.
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Big conservation NGOs increasingly resemble the nature-destroying corporations they should be opposing, writes Margi Prideaux. This ideological capture is reflected in their vapid marketing to conservation 'consumers'; the serious abuse of indigenous communities they should be engaging as partners; and their willing sacrifice of core objectives to money and influence.
Read More... Can markets in 'ecosystem services' secure the future of the English countryside?
Brazil's Olympic triumph - don't mention the genocide!
Are the UK 'biomass sustainability standards' legitimising forest destruction?
COP22 has revealed signs of real momentum toward an effective role for tropical forests in achieving a low carbon future, writes Tony Juniper. Now for the hard bit - connecting with realities on the ground to make it happen. This will mean working with indigenous and other forest communities to support and reward their conservation efforts, while harnessing large-scale international carbon finance.
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Efforts to clean up the Jukskei River are to be applauded but fall far short of what's really needed to return it to the former glory so many Johannesburg residents still remember writes LELYZAVETA IVANOVA
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We refer to them as kitchen basics - milk and eggs - but how often do we stop to think about the true cost of their production? Not often enough writes TIM MADDAMS
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La Guajira, a dusty but spartanly beautiful region in Colombia's desert north is in the grips of a crisis. Climate change, desertification and water shortages have combined to create a perfect storm for the local rural community: a drought so severe some places did not feel a drop of rain for three years writes LAURA DIXON
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In becoming the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Bob Dylan is in esteemed company; many previous recipients have also been voices for social protest and change, all of whom have borne witness to their life and times writes HARRIET GRIFFEY
Read More... WITNESS: Obesity, Ecology and the Confines of the Government Strategy
The Ethical Foodie: We should 'meat' less often...
US Presidential Candidates' First Televised Debate - will climate change and action get a mention?
To feed the world we must abandon not just GMOs but all diversity-destroying selective crop breeding, organic farmer John Letts told Oliver Tickell. Only by using biodiverse local seed mixtures that evolve in the field can food production adapt to climate change without ever-increasing chemical inputs, and meet human needs for wholesome nourishment.
Read More... Schumacher College celebrates 25 years of ecological teaching
Three new reactors are planned for the Moorside site next to Europe's biggest nuclear complex at Sellafield, writes Peter Roche, with a combined capacity of 3.8GW. But a new report for Radiation Free Lakeland shows that the chosen AP1000 reactor design, for all its claimed 'advanced passive' safety features, is not fit for purpose - and should be rejected as unsafe by UK regulators.
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Onshore wind power is effective, hugely popular, and the UK's cheapest form of new power generation, writes Max Wakefield, already competing against gas turbines in prime locations. So why did Cameron's Government ban it? And what will it take to get Chancellor Philip Hammond to reverse that decision next week?
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A 350-member Citizens' Jury convened to decide on whether a massive nuclear waste dump would benefit South Australia just gave the plans a big 'No!', writes Ian Lowe. SA Premier Weatherill must drop his attempt to reverse that decision with a referendum, and accept the jury's well informed, democratic verdict.
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With the election of a 'climate hoaxer' to the US presidency James Dyke's normal optimism that we will deal with climate change in time to avoid the most catastrophic impacts has run out. Now his fears are compounded by the likely appointment of the US's leading climate change denier to run the EPA.
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The Trump Presidency may not be the climate disaster that many fear, writes Joe Ware. The transition to clean energy is increasingly driven by technology and economics, not politics. it was Obama's 'all of the above' energy policy that enabled the fracking revolution. And pro-fossil fuel measures instituted by Trump will now galvanise massive domestic and international opposition.
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Progressives must begin organizing now, writes Pete Dolack, before Trump takes office and command of the world's most deadly security apparatus. We must demonstrate strong resolve against the right-wing authoritarian rule to come, as a Trump White House will unleash repression on a scale not seen in decades.
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Trump is heading to the Oval Office thanks to the rampant corruption of the US liberal establishment exemplified by Hillary Clinton, the electoral fraud that deprived Bernie Sanders of victory in Democratic primary, and President Obama's failure to deliver his promised 'hope and change' to the millions who elected him.
Read More... Dakota Access Pipeline: Native American religion matters!
It will take much more than renewable energy to stop global warming
Leading Climate Change: The Need for Better Dialogue
Plan to save Mexico's vaquita porpoise won't work without fishers' engagement
As Victorian eccentrics go, Frank Buckland was a prime specimen, writes Martin Spray. But this new book about his rich and remarkable life is much more than a collection of anecdotes about his extraordinary doings, his inordinate curiosity about the natural world, and the animals he kept - and ate: a stimulating companion for wet days, cold evenings and wakeful nights.
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The latest blockbuster exhibition from the V&A celebrates the music of its time and those who are forever linked to it, and one of the key outcomes of this counter-culture revolution was the very first Earth Day on April 22nd 1970.
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Thirty years ago, there was no evidence that badgers spread bovine TB among cattle, writes Lesley Docksey. Nor is there now. Yet badgers are still being slaughtered in a futile attempt to control the disease. This timely republication of Richard Meyer's 1986 book reveals the belligerent ignorance of the officials, politicians and farmers driving the failed policy.
Read More... Sellafield exposed: the nonsense of nuclear fuel reprocessing
Contrary to arguments advanced in a recent Ecologist article, the biomass industry supplying the Drax power station in North Yorkshire is a model of sustainability, writes Nina Skorupska, and delivers genuine, substantial emissions reductions compared to coal.
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In a second response to a recent article published in the Ecologist, "Are the UK 'biomass sustainability standards' legitimising forest destruction?", SBP Chief Executive Officer Carstem Huljus debunks the myths in a right of reply
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In response to a recent article published in the Ecologist, "Are the UK 'biomass sustainability standards' legitimising forest destruction?", SCS has prepared this point-by-point rebuttal to several misleading and inaccurate statements, and invites readers with additional questions to contact us directly.
Last week the EU ratified the Paris Agreement to limit climate change, writes Tony Bosworth. So how did Communities Secretary Sajid Javid mark the occasion? By overturning Lancashire's democratic rejection of fracking, so giving a whole new fossil fuel industry the green light to let rip. Hypocrisy? The word hardly does justice to our government's mendacity.
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Australian educator, author and co-inventor of Permaculture, Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison, died on the 24 September 2016 in Sisters Creek, Tasmania. He has been praised across the world for his visionary work, and left behind a global network of 'peaceful warriors' in over 100 countries working tirelessly to fulfill his ambition to build harmony between humanity and Mother Earth.
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An evening debate with Federico Demaria, Graeme Maxton, Jørgen Randers and Kate Raworth at the House of Commons, Monday 28 Nov 2016
Read More...An international summit exploring real and imagined narratives of art, energy and consumption for a troubled planet, taking place at Schumacher College, Dartington, on 11th November 2016
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If you've got the 'Back to School' bug this week then check out these brand new online courses from the prestigious Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental studies - the courses are based on the award-winning Journey of the Universe film and book
Read More...As a society, we are strangely disconnected from the Earth, writes Stephan Harding. It's as if we were aliens placed here to prod and poke with our scientific instruments whilst feeling no sense of meaning, belonging or closeness to her ancient crumpled surface or rich, teeming biodiversity - a state of mind that a forthcoming course at Schumacher College aims to reverse.
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The UK Government has been ordered by a High Court judge to draw up an improved plan by July next year which must bring air pollution within legal limits.
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With the EU Parliament voting next week on CETA, the EU-Canada trade deal, 89 MEPs are demanding that its system of 'corporate courts' must first be verified by the European Court of Justice as compatible with existing EU law. But pro-CETA parliamentary leaders are trying to block all debate in the run-up to the vote.
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Israeli military forces have resumed their harassment of Palestinian pastoralists in the occupied Jordan Valley, part of the West Bank, holding live-fire tank and infantry maneuvers on pastures and cropland close to local communities, accompanied by the forced expulsion of both people and livestock.
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A project to reintroduce red squirrels to isolated areas of regenerating forest in the Scottish Highlands gets under way this month. This will increase both the numbers and the range of red squirrels in the UK, and help to regenerate their native Caledonian forest habitat.
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Record global temperatures in 2015 and 2016 are causing a humanitarian crisis that is more than double that of conflict as a cause of displacement and migration, the WMO stated today. Heatwaves, flood, drought and fires are all contributing to the declining food and water security affecting over 60 million people worldwide.
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An influential organisation of American Muslims announced at COP22 in Marrakesh that it will end investment in fossil fuels, and urged its partners to follow suit, writes Alex Kirby. The move adds to pressure on sovereign wealth and pension funds worth $19 trillion to follow suit to meet Paris Agreement targets.
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The International Chamber of Shipping has committed the industry to legally binding emissions reductions under the Paris Agreement. Unlike the aviation industry, it will make no use of carbon 'offsets', but will reach its targets by increasing efficiency and moving to lower carbon fuels.
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This morning (28 October) in London, protesters dressed as Hallowe'en Zombies posed outside the European Commission office in London with a banner saying "Stop CETA rising from the dead - Toxic trade deals belong in the grave."
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Global CO2 concentrations have reached a historic new base of 400 parts per million, writes Alex Kirby, and are unlikely to fall below that level - 40% higher than the pre-industrial era - for many centuries to come. The WMO released the news just as the UK commits to a new London runway.
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The city of Brussels, capital of Europe, has joined with other Belgian regions to defeat the CETA 'free trade' deal between the EU and Canada, in an unprecedented victory for civil society and campaigners against the EU's 'by the corporations, for the corporations' trade agenda.
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Environmental Lawyers group ClientEarth is in court today to bring a case against the Government for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution in the UK
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International investors worth a collective $24 trillion have warned car manufacturers that they must 'get with the beat' on climate change, writes Terry Macalister. If car makers fail to shift to low emission models, they will face a large-scale sell-off of their shares.
Read More... Peru: national park 'Master Plan' opens uncontacted tribe's land to oil drilling
Toad's 30-year decline shows 'large-scale deterioration of environmental quality'
Cheap as chips! 'Negligible' cost of integrating big solar into UK grid
Proposal for a ban on international trade in elephant ivory is defeated at the CITES conference