Publicerad den onsdag, 18 juli 2012 22:45
2007-08-24 - Over fishing

An urgent message from the Avaaz team:
Fishers in developing countries are catching fewer and fewer fish, because of massive over fishing by industrialized fishing fleets from rich countries, fleets subsidized with tens of billions of Euros every year. As a result, fish populations are now collapsing around the globe, and could soon be pushed beyond recovery.

But our oceans don't have to die. This September, the World Trade Organization will release a new proposal for global fishing rules, and right now, trade ministers are deciding what those rules should be.

If enough of us urge our trade ministers to support a better system, we preserve our oceans for future generations and for the one billion humans who rely on fish for protein today.

Click here to send your trade minister a message in support fairness and sustainability.

A recent study found that 90% of the ocean's big fish, tuna, swordfish, and marlin are already gone. But it's not the countries with the greatest need that are catching too many of these fish, it's the subsidized fishing fleets from the rich countries.

These fleets don't just trawl the open ocean, they fish off the coasts of developing countries, robbing local fishers and their communities of desperately needed food supplies.

And as technology has developed, the crisis has accelerated.

Last week, Dr. Francis K. E. Nunoo, a Ghanaian scientist who studies fisheries ecology, interviewed a local fisherman for this campaign. the fisherman told him:

"Ten years ago, during the peak fishing season of the year, my boat is filled with a single throw of the net. In recent times, we throw the gear about 7 times before filling the same boat. And the situation is even worse this year."

And here's what Sall Samba, an octopus fisherman in Mauritania and father of six, told a reporter:

"You used to be able to fish right in the port. Now, the only thing you can catch here is water."

A group of 125 scientists wrote a letter to the director-general of the WTO, urging him to take action on fishing subsidies. Their argument:

"There are only decades left before the damage we have inflicted on the oceans becomes permanent. We are at a crossroads. One road leads to a world with tremendously diminished marine life. The other leads to one with oceans again teeming with abundance, where the world can rely on the oceans for protein, and enjoy its wildlife. The choices we make today will determine our path for the future."

The World Trade Organization is governed by its 151 member countries. Avaaz members live in every one of those countries and so, if we act together, we have a tremendous opportunity to push for action. The next few weeks, as the WTO works on its new plan, are critical. The plan is to send messages, thousands of them, to our countries' trade ministers, urging a strong decision by the WTO to change the rules that underlie the unfair and unsustainable fishing trade.

Experts say that 29% of commercial fisheries might already be beyond repair. But most of the world's marine ecosystems can recover, if we get our policies right. The very fact that so few people are paying attention to this issue means that our actions will have more power. Please click here to contact your trade minister now.

The fishing crisis is an example of where our global economic system doesn't work, not for people, and not for the earth. But by joining together to fix it, we can create an example of how global democracy should work: human beings, rich and poor, taking action to renew a world full of life.

Raise your voice and spread the word.

You can read more about the fishing crisis at this site set up by our partner on this campaign, Oceana. Look here for fact sheets, studies, and the scientists' letter.

Here is the article that quoted Sall Samba, from the Wall Street Journal, a great look at the global crisis, the role of rich, country subsidies and global regulation, and the human impact on Mauritania.

And this article sheds light on the global situation by looking specifically at Senegal.

2007-08-07 - Jordgubbar katastrof för miljon

Världsnaturfonden varnar för spanska jordgubbar. De är frestande röda och lyser mot konsumenterna i fruktdisken i svenska butiker just nu. Trots det varnar Världsnaturfonden för spanska jordgubbar.
Odlingen tär hårt på naturresurserna och kallas nu ett hot mot miljön.

19 av 20 spanska vårgubbar kommer från fält runt Coto Doñana i Andalusien. 330 000 ton jordgubbar produceras i Spanien och hälften fraktas inte bara till Sverige utan till stora delar av EU inklusive Storbritannien, Tyskland och Holland.

Odlingarna i det gynnsamma klimatet började för 20 år sedan.
Men området är inte bara centrum för jordgubbsodlingen. Det är också ett mycket känsligt naturområde som numera står på FN: s världsarvslista. Nu varnar miljöexperter för att odlingarna långsamt håller på att förvandla området till öken.

Olagliga odlingar
Problemet är inte bara att många av jordgubbsodlingarna är illegala - upp till hälften enligt vissa källor. Cirka 1 300 olagliga vattentäkter som förser de illegala odlingarna med kostbevattning har dränerat området och grundvattnet har sjunkit till bara halva sin nivå.
Konstbevattningarna ut till jordgubbsfälten har nu minskat inflödet av vatten till nationalparken till bara hälften, uppger Världsnaturfonden WWF. Floden Rocina, som alltid bjudit på vatten, har de senaste tre åren torkat ut mellan juli och november.

Plastavfall och gift
Dessutom är verksamheten miljövidrig. Bären växer i långa skyddande tunnlar av plast och 4 500 ton plastavfall sprids varje år.
Bönderna använder dessutom brommetan, ett bekämpningsmedel som är förbjudet i EU.

Nu vill WWF stoppa näringen som utarmar området. ”Genom att köpa spanska jordgubbar – som säljs i affärerna från januari till april – stödjer du förstörelsen av den iberiska naturliga miljön”, skriver WWF i ett upprop.

Organisationen uppmanar inte bara konsumenterna att bojkotta jordgubbarna.

Man vill också att hela odlingsområdet saneras, att de olagliga odlingarna stoppas och att oersättliga naturområden återställs.

2007-07-23 - Sjön som försvann i Chile

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP)
A five acre glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared
and scientists want to know why.

Park rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park said they found a
100-feet-deep crater in late May were the lake had been in March. Several large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water also were spotted.

"The lake had simply disappeared," Juan Jose Romero, head of Chile's National Forest Service in the southernmost region of Magallanes, said Wednesday. "No one knows what happened."

A group of geologists and other experts will be sent to the area 1,250
miles southeast of Santiago in the next few days to investigate, Romero said.

One theory is the water disappeared through cracks in the lake bottom into underground fissures. But experts do not know why the cracks would have appeared because there have been no earthquakes reported in the area recently, Romero said.

A river that flowed out of the lake was reduced to a trickle.