Plan to save Benguela birds, turtles and sharks
July 26, 2007
Posted in Green News
From jellyfish that have multiplied to such an extent that they interfere with fishing operations, to the deaths of large numbers of seabirds, turtles and sharks, it’s pretty clear that things are not going swimmingly off South Africa’s west coast.
About 34,000 seabirds, 4,200 turtles, and more than 7-million sharks and skates are killed in longline fishing operations in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) annually, according to the WWF.
The Benguela current flows northwards from the Southern Ocean along the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as Angola.
However, this week a plan to reduce the impacts of fishing on southern Africa’s marine ecosystems has been released by the WWF and the BCLME.
Ford uses soya to make greener car seats
July 16, 2007
Posted in Transport
Ford seems to be doing quite a bit to green up its seating arrangements. There are lots of reports on the Internet about Ford’s plans to use soya-based foam in its car seats, starting with its 2008 Ford Mustangs. Soya is a renewable resource so the new seats will be far more environmentally friendly than the petroleum-based foam that is normally used in car seats. Also, the foam has up to 24 percent renewable content, takes less energy to produce and cuts carbon dioxide emissions, said Ford in a press release, adding that it gives the company the “opportunity to conserve natural resources and reduce our environmental footprint”.
Debbie Mielewsk, technical leader for Ford’s materials research and advanced engineering department, said that each vehicle produced today contains an average of 13,5kg of petroleum-based foam. “The total annual worldwide market for the foam is 9-billion pounds (4-billion kilograms),†she said, therefore, “research and development of renewable, more environmentally friendly materials to produce the foam, could have a significant environmental impactâ€. Source: Ford website
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Melting glaciers: Everest base camp sinks 40m and Kilimanjaro ‘is not a poster child for global warming’
July 10, 2007
Posted in Green News
Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing, the sons of the first men to climb Everest – Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – have said that the glaciers on the world’s highest mountain are melting to such an extent that the base camp where their fathers began their ascent is now 40m lower than it was in 1953.
Britain’s Independent newspaper reports that, Peter Hillary, who has summited Everest twice, said: “Climate change is happening. This is a fact. Base camp used to sit at 5,320m. This year it was at 5,280m because the ice is melting from the top and side. Base camp is sinking each year. For Sherpas living on Mount Everest this is something they can see every day but they can’t do anything about it on their own.”
Compensation programme helps save lions in Maasai country
July 9, 2007
Posted in Green News
Maasai warriors in their distinctive red robes are one of the iconic images of East Africa. They’ve herded their cattle across the plains, living harmoniously with the wild animals, for centuries – or so it would seem. But nothing is ever as simple as it looks. At a community-owned ranch In the Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem, a vast unfenced region in southern Kenya, the Maasai lose about two head of livestock a day to lions and other predators. To protect their precious cattle, the warriors used to kill lions. And who can blame them, cattle are their livelihood? But a compensation programme set up by the Ol Donyo Wuas Trust has convinced the Maasai communities on Mbirikani ranch that it is possible to live in peace with lions.
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What is 5fm thinking?
July 7, 2007
Posted in Green News
5fm advertised a competition in which you can win a Hummer … no, I’m not joking, a HUMMER … in the middle of the Live Earth concert on SABC2. To quote from Wikipedia: “Hummers receive constant criticism about fuel economy. For instance, the H2 gets about 15 miles per gallon (highway) [ie, 16 litres per 100km] and 10 mpg (street) [= 23 litres per 100km!!], large size, high maintenance cost, and potentially destructive use as off-road vehicles. Hummers have been depicted by environmentalists as excessively damaging.” Although, GM claims the H3′s average fuel consumption in 14.7 litres per 100km (see Wheels24), it’s still not really an appropriate prize to offer in the middle of a climate change concert.
5fm what are you thinking?
What are they doing to 50/50?
July 4, 2007
Posted in Green News
We may have to say goodbye to 50/50 this year, which would be a real shame because it’s been on the SABC for so long it’s something of an institution. I have fond memories of the original Veld Fokus presented by Prof Kristo Pienaar and in recent years I thought it was one of the best sources of information on local environmental issues in the country. The Cape Times reported that all the programme’s staff members have been told that they will be redeployed, but it looks like the programme will carry on until its budget runs out in September. “Management has indicated the programme will continue after being outsourced to a commercial production company, but gave staff members no indication of when, how or to whom this was being done,†the report said.
Click here for the original Cape Times story.
World recognition for a very special desert
July 3, 2007
Posted in Conservation
South Africa got its eighth World Heritage Site last week, the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape in the Northern Cape province. The 160,000-hectares of mountainous desert in the far northwest of the country is part of the succulent Karoo biodiversity hotspot. It also sustains the semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle of the Nama people.
It is the only area where the Nama still construct portable houses, haru oms (pictured below), a practice that was once much more widespread in Southern Africa and is thought to have persisted for at least two thousand years.
The Unesco World Heritage Committee described the Nama’s communally grazed lands as an example of “a harmonious interaction between people and natureâ€. It said they were “a testimony to land management processes which have ensured the protection of the succulent Karoo vegetationâ€.
The succulent Karoo ecosystem has 4,849 succulent plants, 40% of which are found nowhere else. One notable is the halfmens tree Pachypodium namaquanum (pictured above).
Best site on the web never fails to inspire
July 1, 2007
Posted in Green News
Photograph of nickel tailings by Edward Burtynksy
Sometimes I feel very isolated living on the southern tip of Africa. It takes a while for information to filter down this far south. Although now there’s the TED website. It’s manna from heaven for people like me who have limited access to the new ideas that are shaping the world.
It was TED that first introduced me to Al Gore and his climate crisis slide show – I probably would never have thought of forking out cash to see an American politician giving a PowerPoint presentation if I hadn’t first had a taste of how witty and engaging the man is on the TED website. It also brought Malcolm Gladwell, he of the tipping point fame, to my laptop, and the man who explained human happiness and Jane Goodall and EO Wilson and countless others who I would never normally have had access to. I now know what they look like, I’ve seen them speak with passion about the subjects closest to their hearts. And nothing is more inspiring than passion. They are all within reach, downloaded on my desktop, so I can watch them speak again, whenever I need some inspiration.
