The scientific case for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is now overwhelming. The bigger question is how can they be managed more effectively? HORATIO MORPURGO reports
… Governing Marine Protected Areas: Lyme Bay Horatio Morpurgo | 2nd February 2017 Comment Marine Protected Areas Marine Conservation Fishing … lyme regis.jpg The scientific case for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is now overwhelming. …
The impending US-UK trade deal threatens the irreversible loss of public protections on health, safety, labour and environment in both countries, writes Stephen Devlin. Last week Trump signed an executive order forcing systemic corporate deregulation - and the UK's 'pro-business' government is all too keen to go along with it.
… threatens the irreversible loss of public protections on health, safety, labour and … the bottom for the USA and UK. It puts legal protections we all depend on - to be able to … Out. No health, safety, labour, environment protections are safe What this means is that …
Ruthless conservation policies at India's Kaziranga reserve claimed 20 lives in 2015 alone, writes Bhaskar Vira. Now, after a BBC film revealed the grim reality of life for local people, the BBC itself is in the firing line - banned from all India's tiger reserves for five years. Successful conservation must build bridges with communities - not fight them!
… north-eastern India, rangers shoot people to protect rhinos . The park's aggressive … contemporary conservation, as the need to protect endangered species comes into contact … balance modernisation and development with protections for the rights of local people - …
Who are the best guardians of forests and other wild places? Governments? Conservation NGOs? Corporations? No, writes Prakash Kashwan, it's the indigenous peoples who have lived in harmony with their environment for millennia. But to be able do so, they must first be accorded rights to their historic lands and resources, both in law and in practice. Among the countries leading the way, Mexico. Among the laggards, Kenya and India.
… To conserve tropical forests and wildlife, protect the rights of people who rely on them … is that there are inherent trade-offs between protecting the environment and securing social … My research shows that when countries protect the rights of forest-dependent people …
Government promises of 'leaving our environment better than we found it' are melting away in the heat of Brexit, writes Jeremy Robson. Ministers have said that a third of all EU environmental laws may never be transposed into UK statute, while many Tory MPs are anxious to rip away the 'red tape' that prevents building on precious nature sites. We must make British nature great again!
… to get rid of the very legislation which protects these birds. For Gove, European … led the heaths to be designated a 'Special Protection Area' under the EU Birds Directive … areas form part of Natura 2000 , a network of protected sites covering 18% of the European …
Brexit is part of a corporate campaign to remove, undermine and attack European Union regulations and increase the rate of growth and profit. But these very regulations are necessary for the protection of the environment - and life itself. PROFESSOR JOHN McMURTRY, author of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: from Crisis to Cure, raises the alarm.
… the corporate war on regulations designed to protect life itself Professor John McMurtry | … these very regulations are necessary for the protection of the environment - and life … trend is the compulsive dismantling of life-protective law and rights whose masking …
In a potentially devastating blow to the Earth's climate, President Trump's new executive order ends the Interior Department's moratorium on coal mining on public land and begins a repeal of the landmark Clean Power Plan, writes Trip Van Noppen. But this reckless move will not pass unchallenged - the Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA must tackle climate pollution, and clean energy policies can still be defended and advanced at state level.
… line of billionaire polluters, rather than protecting our public health. Today, Trump … air, clean energy and climate action to protect the health of our communities and … responsibility under the Clean Air Act to protect the public from dangerous climate …
We need a new paradigm for ocean governance focused on well-being and guided by principles of sustainability, ecosystem health, precaution and interconnectedness, argues MICHELLE BENDER of the US based Earth Law Centre.
… We need rights of nature legislation now to protect our home planet Michelle Bender | 7th … high seas governance. The coming together to protect and conserve our shared ocean was a … laws and agreements designed to sustain and protect the ocean, marine biodiversity and …
Indonesia's plans to meet its Paris Agreement obligations by protecting its swamp forests, the world's biggest land reservoir of carbon, have been acclaimed by the world's press, writes Yuyun Indradi. But they contain so many loopholes and flawed compromises that - unless radically reformed - they are doomed to certain failure.
… Indonesia's plans to protect its peatland forests are fatally … to meet its Paris Agreement obligations by protecting its swamp forests, the world's … revision to regulations designed to protect the nation's fragile peatlands. The …
In search of stillness and silence, our Nature Editor, Elizabeth Wainwright, spent a night under the stars in the wilderness (Devon's Dartmoor) which left her feeling reflective about the price we are all paying - humans and Nature - for increasing noise pollution
… Nature's soundscapes: protecting personal and planetary silence … what might be discovered if we look inside. Protecting silence, globally and personally In … climate change, which would ultimately protect the Arctic and everywhere else, but I …
Recognising nature as a legal stakeholder with inalienable rights in environmental law proceedings is a powerful counterbalance to corporate dictatorship, writes Mumta Ito. It empowers people and governments to stand up for nature - the underlying basis of our economy and our lives. And it stands in contrast to feeble approaches based on the financialisation and commodification of nature, which may be twisted to justify more destruction.
… rights: a new paradigm for environmental protection Mumta Ito | 9th May 2017 Comment … than in conflict - working synergistically to protect the integrity of the whole. In this … corporations to sue governments for trying to protect people or nature - such as the Bayer …
If it wasn't climate change, was the real purpose of the Number 10 meeting of Theresa May's advisors and President Trump's environmental transition supremo Myron Ebell to plan the post-Brexit deregulation of UK farming, including pesticides? That's how it looks, writes Georgina Downs - and we had better begin now to fight for our health, wildlife and environment.
… Trump's transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency until the inauguration and … will be in filtered cabs and/or have personal protective equipment when using pesticides, rural residents have no protection at all. There are so many horrific …
The United Nations’ International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict takes place on November 6. The international community must face up to the reality that protecting the environment from conflict is vital to protect people, argues DOUG WEIR.
… community must face up to the reality that protecting the environment from conflict is vital to protect people, argues DOUG WEIR. Since its … the enormous challenge of balancing the protection of biodiversity with the demands of …
From child-soldier to Netflix star, the Congolese park ranger has won his award for stopping oil exploration in the Virunga National Park. He talks to SOPHIE MORLIN-YRON
… standing nearby to "keep up the fight and protect the natural park," believing, as he … risked his own life to expose corruption and protect Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World … sense of responsibility." With the goal of protecting Upemba's natural resources from …
Environmental law professor, ROBERT PERCIVAL, who has worked for both the Federal Government and a leading green nonprofit group, says despite the Trump administration's assault on America's environment laws they will survive... and may even be stronger for the attack
… an all-out assault on regulations that protect the environment. In addition to … accord , he wants to slash the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by more than 30 … programme to adopt stronger environmental protections than required by federal law ( but …
The political events of the last year are cause for sorrow, for reflection, and for reorientation. But they're also cause for a Green reboot. And fortunately, the UK's upcoming election on June 8th gives us just such an opportunity, writes RUPERT READ
… regulations, tax laws, and environmental protections are weakest. This does not operate … and Settlers? We must reclaim the word 'protection' from the slough of abuse that it … Politics ought to be centrally about protecting those who are not able to protect …
Agroecology, plant-based diets and scathing critiques of REDD+ have reached the mainstream at this year’s climate talks, argues NATALIE BENNETT
… position, but the discussion of how to protect these precious resources is moving in … generally in the Global North, to “buy” protection for forests in poorer states. They … have developed their own alternative forest protection plan, known as the Joint Mechanism. …
The green belt is part of the critical green infrastructure that delivers multiple benefits for cities, writes Alister Scott. It provides space for recreation, biodiversity and farms supplying local food. It protects us from flooding and drought, improves air quality and mitigates the urban heat island effect. In short, it's far too valuable to allow developers to build all over it!
… and farms supplying local food. It protects us from flooding and drought, … a ring of countryside surrounding the city, protected from development by law. This 'green … Under threat? In theory, the green belt is protected within the government's planning …
With USDA proposing to redefine GMOs for the purposes of food labeling, the issue is more important than ever, writes Jonathan Latham. It's not just to give consumers' the 'right to know' when they buy GM food, it's also a vital means to empower citizens to fight back against the industrialisation of food and farming, and the monopolies of agribusiness corporations.
… profit centre for agribusiness. Special protection for GMO / biotech corporations … crops such as mustard. Who's protecting people? At the human consumption … food chain, if you live in the US, no one is protecting you from potential health hazards …
As President Trump gets on with dismantling and defunding environmental regulation in the US and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, his top environmental advisor has branded the Green movement as 'the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.' We must resist now, writes Donnachadh McCarthy - while we still can!
… civic society and democratic processes to protect people from being poisoned by lead … particulates from diesel burning or to protect the what remains of the natural world, … we have seen at the North Dakota Pipeline Protection Camp. So what aggressive war …
If we want to see sustained collective action, we must work to uncover the stories that bind us and call us to care in the first place -- after all, the ‘corporations’ that we attack our also our neighbours. Nature Editor ELIZABETH WAINWRIGHT reflects on the false dichotomy of ‘us vs them’, and ‘individual vs collective’ action in responding to the climate crisis.
… vs collective action: we need both to protect our climate Elizabeth Wainwright | … and collective responses that continue to protect the natural world. And so any argument …
There is a growing global movement to recognise the rights of rivers, writes Debadityo Sinha. But rights alone are not enough. We must love and respect rivers, and even think like rivers to understand the vital functions they perform within landscapes and ecosystems, and so discover where their 'best interests' truly lie. And then we must be willing to act: protecting rivers and restoring them to health and wholeness.
… lie. And then we must be willing to act: protecting rivers and restoring them to health … our rivers need to be accepted, respected and protected if we really want to make 'rights' … life besides providing water for irrigation. Protection of floodplains should essentially …
The restoration of life and the end of extinctions. Good land management plans for every country. The end of ocean plastics. No more pesticides. Is all this too ambitious for a Christmas wish list? RUTH DAVIS of the RSPB does not think so.
… in environmental thinking, involving not just protection but renewal – an approach which … should reward farmers for restoring soils, protecting natural stores of carbon and … wildlife. An end to oceans plastics , and protection of the ‘blue commons’. We must …
May this new collection of John Muir's writings reach us now and inspire another generation to fall in love with wild nature, to care for it, to know that wilderness is not optional but central to our survival in the centuries to come, writes Terry Tempest Williams - and remind us how to embrace this beautiful, broken world once again with an open heart. If we do approach the mountain, it is we who are moved.
… urgent in his resounding call for wilderness protection. He believed in geology and the … public in our public lands where America's protected wilderness is found. Dances with … it has become resolved' - suggesting the protection of wilderness no longer matters …