tagged w/ land degradation
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Water scarcity can lead to both drought and desertification as well as instigate conflict in communities and between countries.
A top U.N. advisor said on Friday that every minute, 23 hectares of land are degraded by drought and desertification. He said it’s damaging the economic, social and environmental pillars needed for sustainable development.Water scarcity can lead to both drought and desertification as well as instigate... more
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Environmentalists and indigenous groups have come together to condemn a 15 million US dollar plan for six hydroelectric dams in the Peruvian Amazon, signed last week by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Peruvian President, Alan Garcia. While the six dams would produce over 6,000 megawatts, mostly for Brazil, critics say the dams will flood tens of thousands of hectares of rainforest, devastate the lifestyles of a number of indigenous groups, and only serve big Brazilian corporations.
"This accord will not guarantee clean and renewable energy for Peru. On the contrary, it will impose a series of negative environmental and social impacts such as displacement of indigenous people and deforestation in at least 5 departments of Peru, putting at grave risk the future of the Peruvian Amazon," Mariano Castro, former Executive Secretary of the Peruvian National Environment Council (CONAM) and lawyer with the Peruvian Society of Environmental Rights (SPDA), said in a press release by the environmental organization, International Rivers.
According to International Rivers, the construction of Paquitzapango Dam on the Ene River, a headwater of the Amazon River, would impact 17,000 of the Ashaninka tribe, the largest indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon. As well, the dams would threaten two protected areas: the Ashaninka Communal Reserve and the Otishi National Park.
The Ashaninka community has already lost land due to government allowance of oil activities and logging in historical Ashaninka areas. The Ashaninka say that they have not been consulted related to the Paquitzapango Dam.
"The Paquitzapango dam is being planned without a dialogue between the Peruvian government and the people that would be impacted by those projects," said Ruth Buendia Mestoquiari, an Ashaninka indigenous leader. "The Ene River is the soul of our lands, the river that feeds our forests, animals, plants, crops and, especially, our children."
Another dam in the agreement, the Inambari Dam on the Madre de Dios River, would leave 46,000 hectares of rainforest under water, while 15,000 people would lose their agricultural livelihood.
"This deal will only benefit Brazil, and we are not going to let this happen," pledged Alfredo Novoa Pena, an engineer and founder of the Peruvian environmental organization Pro-Naturaleza.
Brazilian professor of electrical enginrering at the University of Sao Paulo, Célio Bermann, told International Rivers that the agreement is not meant to meet the energy needs of the Brazilian people but of big national and international extractive corporations.
"The energy that will be produced will serve the interests of international and Brazilian mining and metallurgy companies that are ever-expanding in the Amazon. The power will not go to meet the needs of everyday Peruvians or Brazilians."
Over the last few years, Peru has increasingly opened its Amazon to large-scale development, driving conflict between indigenous people in Peru and the Alan Garcia administration, including a standoff last year in Bagua that left 23 police officers and 10 indigenous protestors dead, though indigenous groups claim the number of killed was far higher than authorities have admitted.
Currently, 41 percent of the Peruvian Amazon is covered by active gas and oil concessions, while 75 percent of the nation's Amazon rainforest is open to further exploration.
cont.Environmentalists and indigenous groups have come together to condemn a 15 million US... more
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· Report says Bush administration official bullied scientists
· Committee critical of handling of endangered species act
· Politics played a role in 20 endangered species decisions
Politics corroded Bush administration decisions on protecting endangered species in regions nationwide, federal investigators have concluded in a sweeping new report.
Former interior department official Julie MacDonald frequently bullied career scientists to reduce species protections, the interior department investigators found.
"The results of this investigation paint a picture of something akin to a secret society residing within the interior department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another's misdeeds," Congressman Nick Rahall, a Democrat from West Virginia, said late Monday afternoon.
Rahall chairs the House natural resources committee, which has been highly critical of the Bush administration's handling of the Endangered Species Act. Particularly in western states, the environmental law will be one of the biggest issues confronting President-elect Barack Obama's interior secretary.
The Bush administration took office promising to relieve farmers, loggers and developers of some of the regulatory burdens imposed by the Endangered Species Act. MacDonald, a civil engineer who was appointed to serve as deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, played an especially active role.
"MacDonald caused an incredible waste of time and money," one Fish and Wildlife Service official told investigators.
The 141-page investigation released Monday elaborates on inquiries conducted earlier by the interior department's office of inspector general. The earlier probes into MacDonald's work spurred the interior department to reconsider some of its decisions concerning species.
The new investigation offers additional details and interviews, fleshing out how politics potentially played a role on 20 different endangered species decisions. The decisions in question ranged from the northern spotted owl to the northern Mexican garter snake.
"One fish and wildlife service employee told us that MacDonald's influence was so prevalent that 'it became a verb for us - getting MacDonalded,' " the investigators reported.
MacDonald could not be located for comment late Monday. She has largely stayed out of public view since leaving the interior department in May 2007.· Report says Bush administration official bullied scientists
·... more
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Opposition parties in Congo on Tuesday accused the Brazzaville government of buying weapons and military equipment in China, but a government spokesman denied the allegation.
The "weapons and military craft are shipped to Congo under contracts signed between the officials in Brazzaville and the government in Beijing," some 20 opposition groups said in a joint statement read before the press by their spokesman Christophe Ngokaka.
The opposition did not say how much Congo paid for the alleged transaction or when the materiel would be delivered at Pointe-Noire, the country's southern economic and oil capital.
Government spokesman Alain Akouala Atipault told AFP the allegations were based on "fallacious information".
"We formally deny (this).... The opposition is losing it. It should rather present a credible project in the interest of the Congolese people," said Akouala Atipault, who is also communications minister.
But he added: "The government, in normal times, must fulfil its sovereign missions which include the security of goods and people."
Congo has seen a number of civil wars over the last decades that claimed thousands of lives and destroyed its economy with disastrous consequences for its social life.
These conflicts are widely seen linked to the country's election process.Opposition parties in Congo on Tuesday accused the Brazzaville government of buying... more
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Uganda is on high alert as an outbreak of the dreaded Ebola hemorrhagic fever has occurred in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), local media reported.
According to the Director General of Health Services Dr Sam Zaramba, the Health Ministry has communicated to immigration staff at Uganda's western border points to monitor people coming from DR Congo.
"We have asked immigration officials to immediately contact our medical staff in the vicinity in case of any suspicion," Zaramba was quoted by Daily Monitor on Thursday as saying.
With some people reluctant to disclose their exact areas of origin for fear of being inconvenienced and perhaps quarantined, it remains a challenge how the immigration staff will handle the situation. However, Uganda is yet to issue any alerts or tight border controls.
"The WHO has not prompted us and there are minimal chances that the epidemic will reach here because the outbreak is far away from the borders and international efforts are underway to contain it there," added Zaramba.
DR Congo's Ministry of Health declared on Dec. 25 that there was an outbreak of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Mweka District, Kasai Occidental province.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that of 35 suspected cases, including 11 deaths, in western Kasai province, only two were confirmed as Ebola, and both these patients were still alive.
A major Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, then known as Zaire, in 1995 killed 250 out of the 315 people known to have been infected, including health workers who contacted with infected blood.
Late 2007, Uganda suffered an Ebola outbreak in the western district of Bundibugyo, which claimed 37 lives out of the 148 infected. And since this outbreak that was officially declared over on Feb. 20, 2008, Ugandan Health Ministry has been on the alert for any eventualities.
Ebola virus is highly contagious and causes a range of symptoms including fever, vomiting, diarrhea, generalized pain or malaise and in many cases internal and external bleeding.
Mortality rates of Ebola fever are extremely high, with the human case-fatality rate ranging from 50 percent to 89 percent, depending on viral subtype.Uganda is on high alert as an outbreak of the dreaded Ebola hemorrhagic fever has... more
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