August - EU Fishing policy
Story courteous of Greenpeace
Last week a Norwegian coastguard cutter filmed the crew of a Shetland trawler, the Prolific, openly dumping over 5,000 kg of cod and other dead white fish in UK waters. Now this footage is rightly causing a wave of revulsion in the media at the scale of unnecessary waste at a time of rapidly rising food prices and, ironically, when our own Prime Minister is telling us not to waste food.
Such discards are not isolated incidents. They happen routinely all around our coasts, but are almost never documented. They represent a scandalous waste of perfectly marketable fish. The reasons given are many and varied; the fish either are too small, the wrong species, exceed the fishermen's allotted quota, or will fetch too low a price at market. In the case of the Prolific it seems they were discarding tonnes of low-value small (but legally caught) fish in order to fill their quota with higher-value big fish. This time, though, the fact that fish caught in Norwegian sector of the North Sea were dumped in UK waters has outraged the Norwegian government, who released the footage in support of their demand that all fish killed must be landed.
So who's to blame? Current EU policy only sets quotas for fish landed at ports, so fishermen are free to keep trawling until they're happy with the value of their catch, discarding the contents of previous, less valuable trawls. Basically it's a license to 'maximise profit' The EU has been quick to try and characterise this as an isolated event, but ICES, the scientific body which advises the EU on fisheries quotas, suggests that as many as half of all cod and haddock caught in the North Sea are thrown back dead as discards. And the problem is made worse because EU quotas are set for single species, but trawling is an indiscriminate way to fish, so there will inevitably be a large percentage of wasted species caught up in the nets.
Basically the current system is crazy. The only real beneficiaries are the gulls that follow the fishing boats. We urgently need a radical overhaul of the way we manage fisheries, that includes making it a requirement to land all the fish that have been killed, and setting aside large areas as no-take marine reserves where all marine life, including commercially important species, can get some respite from relentless overfishing. The evidence suggests that where marine reserves have been established then, over time, fish stocks begin to recover and end eventually start to thrive again.
The award-winning environmental journalist Charles Clover, in his powerful attack on industrial fishing 'The End of The Line', made the point that if trawling were to take place not at sea, but on land in plain sight of everyone, then it would be quickly banned because the levels of indiscriminate destruction involved are so high that we would all be sickened by the sight. This Norwegian coastguard video has given us just a small taste of what that might feel like and, it seems, we can't stomach it.
Sliding Liberia
"The latest Woodshed Films release, Sliding Liberia follows four young surfers to Liberia in search of more than perfect waves. Risking everything to explore the West African country devastated by decades of war, they record the stories of people they meet—people like Alfred, who became Liberia's first surfer after finding a bodyboard while fleeing from rebels. Besides rediscovering a break that could be the best-kept secret in the surfing world, they find something more important—a way to travel responsibly in the 21st century. Featuring Patagonia Surfers: Dan Malloy, Crystal Thornburg, and Chris Del Moro. Cinematography by: Dave Homcy (Shelter, Brokedown Melody)."
July 3rd - Palm Oil Crisis...
Demand for palm oil is growing and fast. At the moment, most of it ends up in hundreds of food products - from margarine and chocolate to cream cheese and oven chips - although it's also used in cosmetics and increasingly, for use in biodiesel. But the cost to the environment and the global climate is devastating - to feed this demand, tropical rainforests and peatlands in South East Asia are being torn up to provide land for oil palm plantations.
Our consumption of palm oil is rocketing: compared to levels in 2000, demand is predicted to more than double by 2030 and to triple by 2050. Over 70 per cent ends up in food, but the biofuels industry is expanding rapidly. Indonesia already has 6 million hectares of oil palm plantations, but has plans for another 4 million by 2015 dedicated to biofuel production alone.
Much of the current and predicted expansion oil palm expansion in Indonesia is taking place on forested peatlands. Peat locks up huge amounts of carbon, so clearing peatlands by draining and burning them releases huge greenhouse gases. Indonesia's peatlands, cover less than 0.1 per cent of the Earth's surface, but are already responsible for 4 per cent of global emissions every year. No less than ten million of Indonesia's 22.5 million hectares of peatland have already been deforested and drained.
For more info regarding Palm Oil follow the link to Greenpeace at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil May 22nd: Indonesia situation with the Biofuel SectorThe grain and oilseed-based biofuel sector has come under attack from green groups for accelerating the destruction of forests, while some analysts blame it for contributing to soaring world food prices by diverting crops that could be used for food.
"There is no proof that palm oil plantations clear the forest. The government's rule is very clear on this and firms don't dare violate it,"
Tjakrawan said most of the association's members did not own palm oil plantations and new investment projects were mostly for producing crude palm oil, used in the production of a wide range of products from toothpaste to ice cream and biofuel.
He said
Tjakrawan, an electronic engineer by training, said the Indonesian biofuel sector was too small to cause global ripples.
"The biofuel industry at home is still at an early stage and does not affect world food prices due to its small consumption of palm oil."
But as the world's top producer,
7th May: Myanmar Cyclone Toll Climbs To Nearly 22,500
YANGON - Myanmar's military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22,500 with another 41,000 missing, almost all from a massive storm surge that swept into the Irrawaddy delta.
The United Nations' World Food Programme began doling out emergency rice in Yangon, the largest city and former capital, and the first batch of more than $10 million worth of foreign aid arrived from Thailand. But a lack of specialized equipment slowed distribution.
Despite the magnitude of the disaster -- the most devastating cyclone to hit Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people died in Bangladesh -- France said the ruling generals in the former Burma were still placing too many conditions on aid.
"The United Nations is asking the Burmese government to open its doors. The Burmese government replies: 'Give us money, we'll distribute it.' We can't accept that," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told parliament.
In New York, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it was prepared to make available a $5 million grant from its central emergency response fund.
But Rashid Khalikov, a senior UN aid official, appealed to Myanmar to waive visa requirements for UN aid workers trying to get into the country.
"Unfortunately we cannot tell you how many people are in need of assistance," he said. "We just clearly understand that it will probably be in the hundreds of thousands."
NOWHERE TO FLEE
Of the dead, only 671 were in Yangon and its outlying districts, state radio said. The rest were in the vast swamplands of the delta, which was hit by 190 kmh (120 mph) winds and an enormous storm surge.
"More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself," Minister for Relief and Resettlement Maung Maung Swe told a news conference in the rubble-strewn city of 5 million, where food and water supplies are running low.
"The wave was up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," he said, giving the first detailed description of the weekend cyclone. "They did not have anywhere to flee."
As many as 10,000 people died in one coastal town alone.
Information Minister Kyaw Hsan said the military were "doing their best" but analysts said there could be fallout for Myanmar's rulers, who pride themselves on their ability to cope with any challenge.
"The myth they have projected about being well-prepared has been totally blown away," said analyst Aung Naing Oo, who fled to Thailand after a brutally crushed 1988 uprising. "This could have a tremendous political impact in the long term."
US President George W. Bush made a rare personal appeal to the junta to accept US disaster experts who have so far been kept out.
"Our message is to the military rulers," Bush said. "Let the United States come and help you, help the people."
He said he was prepared to make US naval assets available for search and rescue.
The White House later said the United States was committing $3 million through an aid agency to meet the most urgent needs, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.
LITTLE FOOD, NO ELECTRICITY
Reflecting the scale of the crisis, the junta said it would postpone to May 24 a constitutional referendum in the worst-hit areas of Yangon and the delta.
But state TV said the May 10 vote on the charter, part of the army's much-criticized "roadmap to democracy," would proceed as planned in the rest of the Southeast Asian nation, which has been under army rule for the last 46 years.
Its political plans have been condemned by Western governments, especially after the bloody suppression of protests in September.
The information minister said the government had sufficient stocks of rice despite damage to grain stored in the huge delta, known as the "rice bowl of Asia" 50 years ago when Burma was the world's largest exporter.
But in the delta, even villages that managed to withstand the worst of the winds are running out of food and water.
"There's not much food," one woman at a pineapple stall in Hlaing Tha Yar, an hour's drive west of Yangon, told Reuters.
In Yangon, people lined up for bottled water and there was still no electricity four days after the cyclone hit.
Prices of food, fuel and construction materials have skyrocketed and most shops have sold out of candles and batteries. An egg costs three times what it did on Friday.
'JUST TERRIBLE'
The disaster drew a rare acceptance of a trickle of outside help from the diplomatically isolated generals, who spurned such approaches after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Thailand flew in nine tonnes of food and medicine, the first foreign aid shipment, but a Reuters cameraman on the plane said supplies were unloaded by hand as no forklift trucks were available -- a sign the army may lack vital equipment.
Two Indian transport planes are due to fly in on Wednesday and more are on standby, officials in New Delhi said.
The United Nations, which has 1,650 international and local staff in Myanmar, said the children's agency UNICEF had delivered drugs, first aid kits and oral rehydration tablets in Labutta township, a hard-hit area in the delta.
State media have made much of the army's response, showing soldiers manhandling tree trunks or generals climbing into helicopters or greeting homeless victims in Buddhist temples.
Aid agency World Vision in Australia said it had been granted special visas to send in personnel to back up 600 staff in the impoverished country.
"This is massive," World Vision Australia head Tim Costello said. "It is not necessarily quite tsunami level but in terms of impact of millions displaced, thousands dead, it is just terrible."
(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
To make a donation via Red Cross Click Here
Story by Aung Hla Tun
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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1st May: SurfAid International Reaches Milestone in Malaria Free Mentawai Program
Humanitarian organization SurfAid International has completed stage two of its Malaria Free Mentawai (MFM) program, delivering mosquito nets and malaria education to 53,000 people on three of the four Mentawai Islands, off Indonesia's West Sumatran coast.
This milestone has been reached in 12 months, since the launch of the program in March 2007, despite delays when the SurfAid malaria teams were diverted to emergency work after the two major Mentawai earthquakes, measuring 8.4 and 7.9 on the Richter scale, in September. The earthquakes caused major destruction in the Mentawai Islands, with many houses, schools, community health centres, places of worship and government buildings destroyed.
SurfAid International CEO, Dr Dave Jenkins, said the MFM program has been a major achievement, especially with teams accessing the remotest villages via dugout longboats and long jungle treks while carting the specially treated nets, along with parasite testing and education equipment.
"In one year, SurfAid staff have delivered 22,000 nets to 15,000 families and they have just finished working on Siberut, the remotest part of the Mentawai Islands," Dr Jenkins said. "The final leg of the program will concentrate on Sipora Island and that work is due to start in May this year after our staff undergo some further training."
Dr Jenkins said the MFM campaign was a major step towards fulfilling SurfAid's aim to get the majority of children and adults in the Mentawai Islands sleeping under the new, long-lasting insecticide nets that will save many lives and prevent extreme human suffering.
"On behalf of our team, I'd especially like to thank the Mentawai Health Department for their cooperation and NZAID, Billabong, Lonely Planet and World Swim Against Malaria for project funding and nets," he said.
As part of the net distribution, SurfAid conducts an education program about malaria regarding how the nets should be used and cared for, and the villagers must pass a test before they are given nets for their family.
SurfAid has developed a play, which has proven to be very popular, where one person is the mosquito and there is a malaria victim shivering under a blanket while the family is safe under the net.
SurfAid has also tested 11,000 children under nine years of age for the malaria parasite, and a Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) is conducted on any child who has had a fever in the previous three days.
"Our malaria surveys also assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) showing what people know about malaria to be able to measure changes over time and assess the effectiveness of our education program," Dr Jenkins said.
Since its launch, the MFM program has also been documenting GPS points and access details to each hamlet, as well as the population details, in case of an emergency and this up-to-date information was particularly useful in accessing the villages during the last earthquakes.
"Earthquakes are always unpredictable and we shared this knowledge and our marine expertise with other aid agencies working in the region during the recent emergency response operations," Dr Jenkins said.
He added that SurfAid will be focusing efforts this year on working with the Mentawai Health Department to build their internal capacity. "This is to ensure they can sustain the malaria fight into the future with less direct assistance from SurfAid. Meanwhile SurfAid will report on progress in this project as milestones are achieved."
For more info check SurfAids website at http://www.surfaidinternational.org/
April 23rd - Travis Potter Contracts Cerebral Malaria
HB surfer and longtime Indonesian visitor Travis Potter contracted a potentially deadly strain of cerebral malaria while traveling through the Southeast Asian island chain last week.
The Seal Beach goofyfoot spent a hard month searching for undiscovered waves in Papua New Guinea with a half dozen other ferals, filming for an upcoming surf movie called Isolated.
Read more at Surfline
Mozambique - Needing to grow more food to avoid food deficit
MAPUTO (AFP) - Mozambique, which imports hundreds of thousands tons of wheat and rice, needs to develop its own agricultural sector to prevent a food deficit, the World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday.
"Mozambique has rich land and if there was enough production in the agricultural sector, the country would not import basic foodstuffs like rice," Ken Davies, country representative of the UN food agency, told AFP.
"The country must develop its agricultural sector."
The southern African country imports 400,000 tons of wheat and 350,000 tons of rice ever year. Like many developing nations, it is facing food insecurity against a backdrop of increased food import prices.
Irrigation is underdeveloped in Mozambique and the production capacity of small-scale farmers is one of the lowest in Africa because of a lack of fertilisers and expertise.
In a statement on Tuesday, the WFP said high food prices were creating the biggest challenge that the organisation had faced in its 45-year history.
It said rising food prices were "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger."
April 21st: Street Kids in Dakar, Senegal
Story courtesy of Yahoo.com
DAKAR, Senegal - On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat. Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.
It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.
Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.
There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.
It's big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.
Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli's life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam's holy book.
In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.
It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.
They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.
Coli's head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.
He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.
___
Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli's village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.
Coli's parents immediately addressed the man as "Serigne," a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa's western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.
Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa's western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout's fields.
The droughts of the late 1970s and '80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.
Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.
"If you do the math, you'll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary," said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. "It's why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate."
Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It's become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don't know the name of their village or how to return home.
One of the largest clusters of Quranic schools lies in the poor, sand-enveloped neighborhoods on either side of the freeway leading into Dakar.
This is where Coli's marabout squats in a half-finished house whose floor stirs with flies. Amadu Buwaro sleeps on a mattress covered in white linens. The 30 children in his care sleep in another room with dirty blankets on the floor. It smells rotten and wet, like a soaked rag.
Buwaro is a thin man in his 30s who wears a pressed olive robe and digital watch. The children wear T-shirts black with filth. He expects them to beg to pay the rent, because there are no fields here to till.
But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.
Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.
So when Coli failed to return, Buwaro was furious. He flipped open his flashy silver cell phone and called another marabout who kept a blue planner with names of runaway boys. The list stretched down the page. He added Coli's name.
___
His tomato can tucked under one arm, Coli jumped on the back of a bus, holding on to the swinging rear door. He was hundreds of miles from the village where he grew up speaking Peuhl, a language not commonly heard in Dakar.
He could not ask the Senegalese for help. So he got directions in Peuhl from other child beggars, who like him were trafficked here from the zone of green savannah just outside Senegal.
Coli made his way to a neighborhood where he had heard of a place that gave free food to children like him.
"Do you know where you come from?" asked the kind-faced woman at Empire des Enfants. The shelter's capacity is 30 children, but it usually houses at least 50.
Coli knew the name of his mother, but not how to reach her. He knew the name of the region where he was born, but not his village. "My mother is black," he said. "I'm sure I'll recognize her."
The shelter worker told Coli what to do if his marabout came. We will protect you, she said. If he tries to grab you, scream.
Days went by. Maybe weeks.
Then Coli's marabout arrived.
In 2005, Senegal made it a crime punishable by five years in prison to force a child to beg. But the same law makes an exception for children begging for religious reasons. Few dare to cross marabouts for fear of supernatural retaliation.
Coli's marabout entered the shelter flanked by a column of religious leaders in cascading robes that tumbled onto the ground. One of them stabbed his finger at the clouds and yelled out, "The sky will fall down on you if you don't hand over our children."
The shelter is used to such threats. But this time the marabouts had discovered the center's legal paperwork was not complete. They threatened to close the shelter if it did not hand over 11 boys.
To save more than 40 others, the shelter handed over the 11. Coli was on the list.
Back at the school, they beat the 9-year-old until he thought he was going to faint. At night, they dragged him off the floor, doused him in water and beat him again.
Three days later, he ran away again. When he arrived at the shelter, he said: "I want to go home to my mom."
___
To find Coli's mother, aid workers broadcast his name on the radio in Guinea-Bissau. The names of over a dozen children also from Guinea-Bissau played in a continuous loop, like sonic homing pigeons trying to find their target.
No response. Some boys worried their parents might be dead.
"I'm sure my mother is still alive," Coli reasoned. "When I left her she was well, so why wouldn't she be well now?" Underneath his bright eyes is another worry. Will she be angry that he disobeyed his teacher?
Over the past two years, the International Organization for Migration has returned over 600 child beggars to their homes. Several had been hit by cars. Some had scars on their backs. One 10-year-old was so hungry he ate out of the trash. Soon after he returned home, he vomited worms and died.
Almost all the boys had begged on behalf of Quranic instructors in Senegal.
"Cultural habits have been manipulated for the sake of exploitation," said the IOM's Laurent de Boeck, deputy regional representative for West and Central Africa.
Two months went by before a shelter worker pulled Coli aside. His parents were alive.
___
The 13 boys from Guinea-Bissau pile into a bus. Coli screams with glee as it takes off for the airport.
"Is this Guinea-Bissau?" one of them asks as they descend onto the cracked runway and enter the small airport of the nation's capital. "Senegal looks better," says another.
Though Senegal is among the world's poorest nations, it's visibly more developed than Guinea-Bissau, listed 160th out of 177 countries on the U.N.'s human development index. The capital they left had streets clogged with taxis and flashy 4-by-4s. The buildings were tall. The capital they returned to has squat, low buildings and crumbling colonial villas.
"I'm not sure I like it," Coli confides.
As the bus leaves the capital, they pass villages of cone-shaped huts and fields where boys herd bulls. They sing songs, clapping their hands. As they pull into the shelter where their parents were told to expect them, the boys fall silent.
Timidly, they file off the bus. A few of the 12- and 13-year-olds recognize their families. They approach them respectfully, shaking hands.
Coli's mother is not there.
___
A judge tells the parents they will be jailed if they send their children away to beg again. They have to sign a statement promising to protect their boys from traffickers. Most are illiterate, so they leave a thumbprint in blue ink next to their names.
"You sent your kids to hell," the judge says. "You can't say that because you are poor you're going to allow your kids to be abused."
His booming voice ricochets off the cracked walls of the building. The parents stare straight ahead.
But the conditions that made these families send their children to hell still persist.
Many of the villages do not have enough food. Few have schools. In one, the schoolhouse is a bamboo enclosure that doubles as an animal corral. "We haven't had classes here in over a year," an elderly man says as he ducks into the classroom and skirts a pile of bull manure.
The aid group pays for school fees and supplies. But the stipend cannot cover the economic worth of a child. Some of the children returned in previous months now work as bricklayers and goatherds. Others have already been sent back to the marabouts by their parents. The idea of child trafficking as a crime is so new in the region that no African language has a word for it, experts say.
With each passing day, more parents and relatives come, but not Coli's.
On the third day, the shelter pays for another radio address.
By the fourth, half the 13 children are gone.
The others become increasingly agitated. Maybe the radio is broken, Coli muses. His wet eyes fill with the invisible color of worry.
___
Early on the fifth morning, a woman in a pressed peach robe walks up to the shelter.
Coli rushes outside. He stands a few feet away as tears topple down his cheeks. She covers her face with her veil and weeps.
The two sit side-by-side in plastic chairs. Coli's mother looks at her feet. Her family is poor, she says, and she wanted Coli to get an education. It took her several days to reach the shelter because she didn't have $2 for the bus fare.
For more than an hour, Coli cries. Tears run down either side of his cheeks, forming two watery garlands. They meet at his chin and plop down on his collar bone, pooling above his shirt.
She stands up and wipes his chin. They leave, crossing the dusty boulevard.
Her arm reaches around his shoulder and the long sleeve of her robe falls around the little boy. It hides him from the remaining children, who silently watch Coli go home.
___
April 18th - Brazil: Biofuels are not at the root of hunger crisis
BRASILIA, Brazil - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made an impassioned defense of biofuels, denying that their production contributes to food scarcity and rising global prices.
He also sharply criticized industrial countries for subsidizing agricultural output, which he blamed for undermining the competitiveness of developing nations and reducing world production.
"Biofuels aren't the villain that threatens food security," he said at the start of a Latin American meeting of the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization. "On the contrary ... they can pull countries out of energy dependency without affecting foods."
Brazil is the world's leading exporter of ethanol, and the world's No. 2 producer after the United States. Brazil makes the biofuel from sugar cane, as opposed to the corn-based ethanol that dominates U.S. production.
Silva's speech Wednesday was seen as a response to a U.N. report released Tuesday that called biofuels a "crime against humanity," for diverting food crops toward fuel production as a global scarcity deepens and food prices rise.
The report said farmers worldwide must reduce dependency on fossil fuels and better protect the environment, as riots erupt over food shortages in the Caribbean and Africa and hunger approaches crisis stage in parts of Asia. It recommended an international moratorium on incentives for producing and marketing biofuels.
BRAZILIAN AMAZON RAIN FOREST DESTRUCTION SPED UP BY ILLEGAL SOY BEAN PLANTATIONS
The destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is being dramatically accelerated due to massive plantations of soy. European consumers are inadvertently causing the effect due to preference of non-genetically modified soy instead of the American GM equivalent.
Areas the size of Belgium in the Brazilian rainforest are being cleared annually by illegal loggers. The logged land is then used to plant non-GM soy beans. The Brazilians are making huge profits from this illegal activity by tapping into the public demand for GM free foods. Once the soy crops have been harvested, the land becomes useless and nothing is able to grow in these areas again. The Amazon contains one third of the world's plant and animal species. It's feared that with this added strain on the destruction of the world's most vital ecosystem, the forest will be completely lost in years rather than decades. On top of this, the Brazilian government are now allowing genetically modified soy beans to be planted in the south of the country. Until now, the country had banned the growing of GM crops.
For more information check http://www.looking-glass.co.uk/
Indonesia
JAKARTA - Indonesian authorities have raised the alert level for a volcano near the country's third largest city following increased volcanic activity, a volcanology centre official said on Thursday
More than 100 volcanic tremors were recorded from Mount Papandayan in West Java on Wednesday, although there were no visible signs it would erupt soon, said Estu Kriswati from the volcanology centre in the nearby city of Bandung.
"The volcano has shown increased activity since April 9 but it reached its peak yesterday," she said.
Scientists have raised the alert to yellow, two notches below the highest red alert.
Papandayan, a popular tourist site, last erupted in 2002, emitting ash and sending mud down its slopes but causing no casualties.
A 1772 eruption destroyed villages and killed about 3,000 people.
Indonesia has the highest number of active volcanoes of any country, sitting on a belt of intense seismic activity known as the "Pacific Ring of Fire".
People often live and farm on the slopes of volcanoes because of the rich volcanic soil.
On Tuesday, about 600 people were evacuated on Flores island in eastern Indonesia after Mount Egon volcano began spewing ash and authorities raised the alert to orange, one level below the highest level.
In the past two years, at least three volcanoes in Indonesia -- Mount Merapi, Kelud and Anak Krakatau -- have shown signs of activity, but all are relatively quiet now
Philippines Population Climbs, Food Problems Loom
MANILA - The Philippines' population has grown over two percent each year since 2000, the government said on Thursday, but experts said Asia's biggest Catholic nation was unlikely to change policies to slow the increase.
The country has one of the highest population growth rates in the region, with at least three babies born every minute. Its population reached 88.57 million at a census in August last year, up from 76.5 million in 2000, the government said on Thursday.
The figures come as the government grapples with soaring prices of rice, due at least partly to the inability of the country to grow enough of the staple to feed its rapidly growing population.
As a measure of the seriousness of the problem, Manila has temporarily halted conversion of agricultural land for property development, hoping to ring-fence paddy fields to meet the food needs of the country.
Soldiers armed with M-16 automatic rifles guard the sale of subsidised rice and hoarders are being prosecuted.
The country's top economic planner said population control policies needed to be reviewed, but promoting artificial birth control, anathema to the Church, is not a likely option.
"The population is increasing and it means that government has to more vigorously implement its population policy, which is responsible parenthood and the advocacy for natural family planning," Economic Planning Secretary Augusto Santos told Reuters. "I think the population commission will have to review its policies," he added. "We really need greater efforts. It means we have to work harder to make the economy function more properly and more smoothly."
At least one-third of the country's population are poor and the number of poor is growing faster than the population.
Last month, government data showed that 28 million people were subsisting on less than $1 per day in 2006, up 16 percent from 2003.
But Santos said artificial birth control remained a sensitive issue.
In a nod to the Church, the government emphasises natural family planning over artificial methods, and experts said there was not likely to be any change in this in the immediate future.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who came to power in 2001 with the backing of the Church, has consistently emphasised natural family planning. Government booklets on responsible parenting make no mention of condoms, pills or intrauterine devices.
MADE IT CLEAR
"She has made it very clear she will not purchase contraceptives, she will not promote any other method except what the Church approves and she has very strong links with the most conservative elements of the Church," said Alberto Romualdez, a former health secretary.
Still, the National Statistics Office said the annual population growth rate was 2.04 percent between 2000 and 2007.
Although that fell short of the aim of bringing the growth rate below 2 percent, it was a drop from the average annual growth of 2.34 percent between 1990 and 2000, officials said.
Romualdez said it was not good enough.
"For me, 2.04 percent is well within the normal variation of population growth rates with or without intervention by government. For me, 2.04 means that the government has not done anything."
Other experts, however, said it was a beginning.
"I think it is a significant drop," said Benjamin de Leon, President of the Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc. "But I still have to see in this administration a policy that informs people of the need to space their children, the need to plan their families."
According to the United Nations Population Fund, the average population growth rate in Asia is 1.1 percent.
Solita Monsod, professor of economics at the University of the Philippines, said the problem did not lie with the Church.
She said most Filipinos wanted to regulate their families and providing access to information and funding for civil service groups involved in family planning was key.
"Survey after survey has shown that when it comes to family planning, the Church does not make a difference," Monsod said. "The people don't have access. Give them what they want and then the population problem will take care of itself."
March 28th News Focus: DRIFT MAGAZINE
SWAP is a supporter of DRIFT surfing magazine. DRIFT is a unique online magazine provding surfing information from an environmental perspective. Our feature article is very much related to the aims of SWAP explaining carbon offsetting in Liberia. To find out more or read more environmental and surfing related articles take a look at DRIFT Magazine at http://www.driftmagazine.co.uk/
Focus Article:Liberia's new future carbon offsetting
Fancy a trip to Robertsport? Offset your air miles an effective way. If you do fancy jetting off to warmer waters, consider spending a fraction more and offsetting your carbon footprint.
Is there really a problem??
The sceptics rage about carbon offsetting, the great climate change swindle, and all manner of facts and figures are banded around. But before you decide to pack your Creatures bag, break out the passport, and generally get the surf show on the road, just think about one tiny little thing. It doesn't actually cost much to offset your trip, so why not just do it anyway? our way.
Does offsetting really do anything?
So, we've established that there is a potentially huge problem with our climate. But we aren't suggesting you don't go. Reducing your carbon footprint is the best way to help tackle climate change. But you want to go, you've worked hard to get the cash, so why not? Don't have a moral dilemma, just spend a fraction more to help offset the huge amount of fuel a modern jet airliner uses. And it is a frightening amount. Check out the figures below for a comparison.
| Trip | CO2 in tonnes |
| Fly to Robertsport, Liberia | 1.3 |
| Drive a 2 litre diesel car for one year | 2.4 |
Don't take our word for it, check your car's emissions here and your flight's emissions here.
So in one flight, you've chucked out just over half the carbon dioxide, as you would in a year's motoring! That's mad.
How much does it cost?
You would be amazed at how simple it is to fix this problem, assuming airliner manufacturers don't come up with a solution very soon. With the Carbon Neutral Company, between £9.75 and £18.20. When you think how much the flight set you back, it seems an impossibly small amount. Less than most travel insurance policies. And yet it's true, that's all it costs.
So, in order to have peace of mind, all you need to part with is somewhere between ten and twenty quid. And when you have the option of helping carbon reducing programmes in China or clean energy projects in India, your surfing holiday suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.
March 11th - Assistance required within the Mentawais
Quakes Rattle Region
This past week saw a multitude of earthquakes rattle the island chain containing the Mentawai Islands.
A 7.3 (according to USGS site) earthquake hit just SE of Katiet Village on Sipora Island (Mentawai) about 3:30pm local time Monday 25 February. Jason Brown, SurfAid's E-prep Manager has been in contact with his E-Prep team in the field and people have fled to the hills.
There was a tsunami alert but it has been withdrawn.
The latest death and injury toll from a similar sized earthquake in Simeuleu last week (the island above Nias which is part of Aceh) is four dead and 67 injured, with at least 1,350 houses damaged, so hopefully people are OK in the Mentawai.
Want to help? Volunteer with our SWAP programme or make a donation to Surf Aid Organisation at http://www.surfaidinternational.org/
February 20th - Earthquake hits Sumatra
The quake measuring 7.5 hit just off the remote island located near Sumatra on Wednesday, triggering panic across the region lashed by the earthquake-triggered 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 168,000 people in Indonesia.
"The majority of the population have not returned to their homes. Many are still in the hills while others are just in makeshift shelters built near their houses," Simeulue's local government spokesman Abdul Karim told AFP.
According to government data, besides the three dead, 51 people were slightly injured, 33 houses and buildings were heavily damaged and 81 others sustained light damage.
An official from the Aceh provincial disaster mitigation centre Iskandar told AFP that he was on his way to Simeulue with a team to help assess any further damage across the island, which is home to nearly 80,000 people.
Simeulue was one of the islands closest to the 2004 quake's epicentre, but the tsunami killed fewer than 10 people there partly because the population recognised the receding sea as a sign of disaster and fled inland.
February 16th - SWAP partners with Eco friendly company
Added to the promotion of eco-friendly products SWAP has become a supporter of allthingsgreen.net offering a wide range of envrionmentally friendly products for travelling overseas.
February 4th - Bus Bombing in Sri Lanka COLOMBO
Sri Lanka celebrated its 60th independence anniversary Monday with a display of military might, but suspected rebels marred the holiday with their own show of power, killing 13 passengers in a bus bombing. Hours after the parade, a roadside bomb tore through a bus in the Welioya region, about 150 miles northeast of Colombo. The attack killed 13 people and wounded 16 others, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, blaming the rebels. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan did not answer calls seeking comment. The Tamil Tigers, listed as a terror group by the United States and European Union, routinely deny responsibility for such attacks. Another roadside bombing in the southeastern town of Buttala killed one soldier and injured two others, the military said. The bus attack came after a weekend of violence.
Bali - World Launches talks on forest payoffs
BALI, Indonesia - For decades, a flood of aid and an army of conservationists couldn't save Indonesia's rain forests from illegal loggers, land-hungry peasants and the spread of giant plantations. Now the world is looking at a simpler approach: up-front cash. Whether it was arming forest police or backing schemes to certify legal logs, no tactic could silence the chain saws or douse the intentional fires that each day destroy 20 more square miles of Indonesia's rain forests, and an estimated 110 square miles elsewhere in the world's tropics. The problem was pure economics: Neither local authorities nor the rural poor, in Indonesia and elsewhere, have a material incentive to keep their forests intact. That could now change because of a decision at December's U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a deal, as part of the next international climate agreement, under which countries would be rewarded for reducing their galloping rates of deforestation, a big contributor to global warming. The cash might come directly from a fund financed by richer northern nations, or through "carbon credits" granted per unit of forest saved. The credits could be traded on the world carbon market, where a northern industry can buy such allowances to help meet its own required reductions in emissions of global-warming gases. Indonesia and other tropical countries backing the "avoided deforestation" concept hope this carbon price will outpace what landowners could get from logging the forests or clearing them for palm oil, rubber, soybean or other plantations.
January 24th Brazil 'Cracking down on deforestation'
Brazil is attempting to combat its issue of deforestation by sending extra federal police and environmental agents to 36 cities/towns where illegal forest clearing has jumped immensely. President Lula da Silva called an emergency cabinet meeting to address the rising problem of deforestation. Amazon forest clearing has jumped in the final months of 2007 spurred on by heavy market demand for corn, soy and cattle. Red Cross warns the long-term impact of the Mozambique floods Red Cross claims the floods were worse than the floods of 2000-01 even though they did not claim hundreds of lives like the previous flooding. They were not as bad in terms of human losses but more so due to crop destruction. The real disaster will be how many months it will take the population to recover. 180 000 have been displaced by this years flooding.
January 1st - New for 2008!
SWAP is offering surf and volunteer placements in Ecuador and South Africa! Check out are new deals via our site December 28th - Support our development SWAP is expanding! Attention - SWAP is looking to promote other organisations that are looking at creating volunteer placements for individuals. If you are interested in SWAP marketing vounteer opportunieis please dont hestiate to contact us on mail@swaptravel.org
December 28th - Reducing our waste
Have you ever considered what happens to all the bottles of water consumed whilst travelling overseas? Unfortunately due to a combination of lack of investment and awareness the levels of recycling within developing regions remain relatively minimal. Ultimately plastic bottles, along with much other material will be disposed of at the nearest landfill site or tipping ground. SWAP is supporting a revolutionary design, the Steripen which could potentially reduce the impact of plastic bottle waste in areas overseas. The Steripen is the only portable water purifier that uses UV light to destroy water-borne diseases.Its microbiological effectiveness has been tested at 3 universities (U. Maine, U. Arizona, Oregon Health Sciences U.). It has been shown to destroy over: 99.9999% of bacteria, 99.99% of viruses and 99.9% of protozoa (i.e. Giardia and Cryptosporidium) which exceeds the requirements set by US EPAs Guide Standard for testing microbiological water purifiers. Steripens are now available on our booking and online shop page.
December 20th Bali Climate Convention
The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, took place at the Bali International Convention Centre and brought together more than 10,000 participants, including representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and the media. The conference culminated in the adoption of the Bali roadmap, which charts the course for a new negotiating process to be concluded by 2009 that will ultimately lead to a post-2012 international agreement on climate change Bali also saw an agreement that will allow the Adaptation Fund to fund projects in developing countries that will help people cope with the impacts of climate change over the next four years. The Fund, currently worth over $30 million and which is expected to grow to an estimated $80-$300 million by 2012, will get its resources from a two per cent levy on all transactions of the Clean Development Mechanism. The Bali Conference also agreed on a new programme to scale up investment for the transfer of clean technologies to developing countries. It was widely agreed in Bali that for poorer countries to avoid the same development mistakes of industrialized countries, they would need newer and cleaner technologies. Deforestation, which causes 20 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, also figured on the agenda in a major way for the first time in climate change discussions. Countries agreed on a range of measures to study and assess the issue — including finding out just how to calculate emissions from deforestation, as well as encouraging demonstration projects that can address the needs of local and indigenous communities.