By Bhavani Prakash 2011 is the International Year of Forests, and I thought it fitting to conclude the year with a final piece on some of the environmental effects of deforestation and subsequent land use that I observed and learnt about during my field trip a few months ago, to the area of Janda Baik, [...]
By Bhavani Prakash This has been a week of climate pessimism. First, The Guardian on Wednesday, 9 Nov 2011 quoted the International Energy Association (IEA)’s warning that the world is headed for irreversible climate change in only 5 years. The article says: “If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as [...]
Rice means life and survival for billions of people. Relying on a narrow range of rice strains grown in monocultures has led to increased pest problems and erosion of rice biodiversity. Anitha Reddy shares a story of a farmer from India, Ghani Khan, who has successfully eschewed modern hybrid rice seeds to return to traditional varieties of rice [...]
By Bhavani Prakash “It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.” -Wangari Maathai (April 1 1940 – 25 September 2011) It was with immense sadness that we heard of [...]
By Bhavani Prakash Prof. Philip H. Howard, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University has created an interesting infograph on the Structure of the Seed Industry from 1996 to 2008. Not surprisingly, it shows an oligopolistic industry with a small number of large players such as Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Limagrain-Vilmorin, Land-O’Lakes, KWS and Bayer. As an [...]
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups native to a land or region. Usually they have a close relation to the land and live in consonance with nature. They believe that land and people are inseparable and interdependent. It is this aspect of their lifestyle-the intertwining of their lives with their natural surrounding that are a subject of fascination to modern man. Today at a time [...]
Lim Li Ching, who is co-author of the book “GMO Free” works with the biosafety and sustainable agriculture programs at Third World Network (TWN), an international NGO based in Malaysia. TWN covers developmental issues, policy advocacy work, climate change, WTO, Biosafety issues, to advance social justice with a pro-poor agenda. She is also a Senior [...]
Until we have a law to prosecute those who destroy the planet, corporations will never be called to account for their crimes by Polly Higgins Sophie Scholl, a Munich University student, was executed for revealing the truth about the activities of the Nazi authorities; today 20 brave Ratcliffe whistleblowers have been sentenced at Nottingham crown [...]
by John Pearson I was in Bangkok last month, and many people were talking about the recent floods. In the previous two months large parts of Thailand had experienced heavy rains. More than 4 million people have been affected, with 165 sadly killed. Many areas along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok were inundated – [...]
Though Olive Ridley Sea Turtles are found throughout the world, Orissa – an eastern coastline state of India, is the single largest rookery or breeding ground in the world for these turtles which migrate from the Indian Ocean through the Bay of Bengal every year for mating and nesting. Worshipped by most small fishermen as [...]
