In February, Red Panda Project (RPP) began a campaign to garner support for efforts to create the world’s first red panda reserve. Executive Director Brian Williams spoke to the San Diego chapter of the American Association of Zoo Keepers at the San Diego Zoo, the first North American Zoo to house red pandas. The first pair arrived from Calcutta in 1940 and were probably captured in the PIS corridor, where RPP is creating the world’s first red panda protected area.
Patty Martin, director of Earth Island’s Safe Food and Fertilizer project, was recently quoted in an article in The Honolulu Advertiser regarding a bill currently before Hawaii’s Senate (Senate Bill 3179, SD1). The bill would require disclosure of hazardous materials in fertilizers and impose standards that are more stringent than those required by the EPA or those proposed by the fertilizer industry.
Mangrove Action Project Executive Director Alfredo Quarto attended the Seattle Seafood Summit in January to protest the inadequacy of standards being used by Wal-Mart and Darden Restaurants (parent company of Red Lobster) to certify farmed shrimp as sustainably raised. These faulty standards will lead to further global mangrove forest loss, endangering coastal communities by removing the protective greenbelts that can greatly lessen the impacts from future tsunamis and hurricanes, among other important considerations, says Quarto.
UniversitÁrea Protegida Nicaragua (UÁP) supports Nicaragua’s future environmental leaders through scholarships and training. In an effort to sustain its rural scholarship program, UÁP is supporting a youth cooperative bakery project in Padre Ramos. The project will help 15 high school students pay for their study costs and youth group activities. UÁP is looking for fiscal sponsorship for this initiative. For more information, write to UÁP director Olin Cohan at uap@earthisland.org.
The Borneo Project is moving to Borneo! Starting May 2006, Director Jessica Lawrence and her partner Shawn Sullivan will be living with indigenous communities struggling to protect endangered rain forests and human rights. They will be building capacity in community mapping, land rights legal defense, alternative energy, forest protection, communications, reforestation, fundraising, and international volunteer coordination. E-mail borneo@earthisland.org if you are interested in volunteering in Borneo, or to receive monthly e-mail updates.
Bay Area Wilderness Training will be holding another whitewater rafting trip this year. On July 22 and/or 23, participants can travel down the South Fork of the American River (near Sacramento, California), with the assistance of certified, experienced guides. The $75 fee is a fraction of what commercial tour guide operators would charge you for the same trip, and proceeds go to a great cause! For more details call (415) 788-3666 x 125.
In 1982, Christopher McLeod of Sacred Land Film Project produced a documentary on the radical environmental group Earth First! The Art of Resistance aired on FreeSpeech TV in late February. You can now watch this episode online at http://sourcecode.freespeech.org.
We don’t have a paywall because, as a nonprofit publication, our mission is to inform, educate and inspire action to protect our living world. Which is why we rely on readers like you for support. If you believe in the work we do, please consider making a tax-deductible year-end donation to our Green Journalism Fund.
DonateGet four issues of the magazine at the discounted rate of $20.