Environmental
Rousseff pressed to veto Brazil forestry law
by Staff Writers
Brasilia (AFP) April 26, 2012
 |
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff came under enormous pressure Thursday from environmentalists to veto a new forestry bill they fear will speed up deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector scored a major victory with congressional approval Wednesday of the forestry code reforms, which Rousseff repeatedly promised to veto while on the campaign trail in 2010.
The current code, which dates back to 1965 and which farmers argue is not respected anyway, limits the use of land for farming and mandates that up to 80 percent of privately-owned land in the Amazon rainforest remains intact.
The new bill would allow landowners to cultivate riverbanks and hillsides that were previously exempt, and would provide an amnesty from fines for illegally clearing trees before July 2008.
Farmers, whose industry represent more than five percent of Brazil’s GDP, argue that the existing legislation is confused, putting economic development at risk and costing valuable investment.
They say the new code would promote sustainable food production and bring an end to severe environmental restrictions that have forced many smaller farmers off their land.
Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies approved the controversial legislation in a 247-184 vote on Wednesday night. The text now goes to Rousseff for ratification after having been approved by the Senate in December.
Paulo Moutinho of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) warned that if Rousseff did not use her veto, years of successful efforts to rein in the ruination of the Amazon would be jeopardized.
“Without a veto by President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil will lose the gains of the last few years which led the country to curb deforestation. We will lose leadership and credibility,” Moutinho said.
Opponents say the bill will mean more deforestation and warn it will embarrass the country ahead of hosting the Rio+20 in June, a UN gathering aimed at addressing global threats to the environment.
“It grants amnesty to loggers and raises the risk of environmental disasters in major cities,” opposition lawmaker Ricardo Tripoli said as he left Wednesday night’s vote. “Now it is important that the president veto it.”
Gilberto Carvalho, secretary-general for the presidency, said Rousseff would weigh the decision “with a lot of serenity, without animosity,” adding: “We have a great responsibility toward the country.”
A recent study by the University of Brasilia found that the new forestry code would increase deforestation in Brazil by 47 percent by 2020.
Carlos Rittl, a WWF climate expert, called it the “biggest environmental retreat in Brazil in decades,” while former environment minister Marina Silva urged the public to join a “VetoDilma” online campaign.
But Assuero Doca Veronez, president of the national environmental commission of the National Farming Confederation, said the present code “has long been incompatible with the changes in Brazilian agribusiness.”
The proposed reform threatens 690,000 square kilometers (270,000 square miles) of land and would prevent Brazil from reaching its goal of reducing deforestation by 80 percent, according to the Climate Observatory, a network of 26 non-governmental organizations set up in 2002.
Authorities say key reasons for the deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest — a region of amazing biodiversity that is considered crucial to the fight against climate change — are fires, the advance of agriculture and stockbreeding, and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.
Deforestation has slowed since Brazil declared war on the practice in 2004, vowing to cut it by 80 percent by 2020.
Between 1996 and 2005, 19,500 square kilometers (7,530 square miles) of forest was cut down on average, peaking in 2004 when more than 27,000 square kilometers was lost.
Better law enforcement and the use of satellite imaging saw the lowest rate of deforestation in 2011 since records began three decades ago. Just over 6,200 square kilometers was cut, a 78 percent reduction on 2004.
Related Links
Forestry News – Global and Local News, Science and Application
Brazil to boost military presence to protect Amazon wealth
by Staff Writers
Brasilia (AFP) April 26, 2012
 |
Brazil will boost its military presence in the Amazon region to protect its huge natural resources from any external threat, Defense Minister Celso Amorim told the Senate Thursday.
“The commitment to the defense of the Amazon is fundamental. Navy, Air Force, all services will boost their presence in the Amazon in the next few years,” he said without giving further details.
Amorim said Brazil did not feel threatened by any neighboring country but added: “We cannot rule out that some power from outside the region” may covet the natural resources of the Amazon, the planet’s largest rainforest and its main source of fresh water.
“We are working on a plan to deploy (security) forces and the Amazon plays a very important role. It’s the most vulnerable part of our country,” Amorim said.
“We have a wealth of resources which can make us the target of adventures,” he added.
Amorim said the country’s strategic planners were planning to boost “transparent cooperation” with other Amazon countries, referring to plans to set up a security commission with Peru and Colombia.
“We do not feel threatened by any South American countries and we do not want anyone to feel threatened by us. We always want full transparency to avoid suspicions,” the minister said.
Brazil, Latin America’s largest country and the world’s sixth largest economy, shares the sprawling Amazon with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
Brasilia is also boosting its naval power in the South Atlantic with a ambitious submarine program to protect its huge deep-water oil reserves and project its growing influence.
Under the National Defense Strategy unveiled in 2008, the navy was tasked with developing a blue-water force to protect Brazil’s huge sub-salt oil reserves, the Amazon river basin and its 7,491 km (4,655 miles) coastline.
The sub-salt oil fields, located off the country’s southeast Atlantic coast beneath kilometers of ocean, bedrock and hot sat-beds, could contain more than 100 billion barrels of high-quality recoverable oil, according to official estimates.
The centerpiece of the naval buildup is the ProSub program under which France is to supply four Scorpene-class diesel-electric submarines and help develop the non-nuclear components of Brazil’s first nuclear-powered fast attack submarine.
Related Links
Forestry News – Global and Local News, Science and Application
**********************************************************************************************************
Survival / Sustainability
Have you ever considered raising your own backyard cow? Well, many people haven’t, but they have considered making their own cheeses from scratch. In Sue Weaver’s new book, The Backyard Cow, you can find all the information you need to make simple cheeses and yogurts from scratch. And if you find yourself impressed with your newly developed cheese making skills, then go for it — get yourself the backyard cow of your dreams! The book lays out all you’ll need to know about raising a happy, healthy, and highly productive backyard cow. Until then, enjoy this easy recipe from the book.
Soft Citrus Cheese Recipe
This cheese is delicious on crackers or bagels. Or, purée it in a food processor and add a dash of honey to make a tasty base for fruit dips.
Ingredients:
1/2 gallon milk
1/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
Salt (optional)
Herbs (optional)
Instructions:
1. Heat milk to at least 175 degrees Fahrenheit, and no more than 180 degrees. Maintain that temperature and stir for 30 seconds, then slowly whisk 1/8 cup lemon or lime juice into the hot milk. Cover, turn off the heat, and let the milk sit for about 15 minutes, or until the curd clearly separates from the whey. If it hasn’t separated in 15 minutes, add small amounts of the remaining citrus juice until it does.
2. Pour the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. Tie the corners in a knot and hang the bag to drain for several hours until the curds stop draining.
3. Remove the cheese from the bag. Add salt and herbs to taste. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
It turns out I was practicing permaculture before I ever heard the word. The coined word means “permanent agriculture,” referring to finding the way to let nature seek its own balance in gardening and other areas of life.
Here are some sections adapted from my Self-Sufficient Home book.
FIGURING THINGS OUT
When I was still living with my parents, we had no space at all to garden. It was unthinkable then to tear up a front lawn and use it for a garden – something I wouldn’t hesitate to do today. The next door neighbor offered us the use of an empty yard between our houses. My mother – who grew up on a farm – sat up at night with me planning how to use that space for gardening. Most of what I learned about what to plant and not to plant was learned by making mistakes.
I began by planting herbs, tomatoes, and corn, all neatly arranged in north-south lines with some pathways in-between. I knew nothing about fertilizer or mulch or pest control. I just went out there and planted what I believed would make the best garden, and I watched the results.
Herbs took care of themselves – mints, fennel, oregano, lavendar, and others. Herbs tended to be drought-tolerant, and required very little of my time and effort.
Tomatoes grew good too, but I learned that they just grew and grew, longer and longer, and only began to produce lots of tomatoes when I pinched back the stems so the branches would not grow as long. Yes, I got tomato worms, which I just picked off and tossed to the birds.
Corn was quite an education. It grew tall and the ears formed. As they got bigger, I noticed that they were very infested with lots of ants, and aphids, and earwigs. In horror, I would take the hose and wash all the bugs off, and this worked to some extent since it was a small garden.
That first season’s corn was a disaster, with bug-infested, half-developed ears, and I even used some bug poison for the first and last time. I experimented with some of the natural pest-repellants, and made my own insecticide from a mixture of garlics and hot peppers, liquified in the blender, and sprayed on the plants. I even added a little Basic H to the mix. I had some results, but I was still working with poor soil.
In desperation, I studied all I could on natural pest control. After all, I had fresh memories of one of my uncles in Chardon, Ohio, who had to dress up in what looked like a bee suit every time he went into his apple orchards so he would be protected from all the pesticides that he sprayed on the apples. (He died of cancer). Shouldn’t farming and gardening be about life, not death, I wondered? Can’t nature take care of itself? Isn’t there a way to find a balance so that the bugs keep the other bugs in check?
***********************************************************************************************************
Activism
Sometimes Civil Disobedience is the Only Way to be Heard
by TheRealNews
Leah Bolger, a retired navy officer, talks about her arrest at Congress and plans for NATO protest
Bio
Leah Bolger is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Navy who retired in 2000 at the rank of Commander. She was elected as the first female president of Veterans For Peace. Bolger has been involved in several national efforts and she has been arrested several times for acts of civil disobedience, most recently in a hearing of the Super Committee, where she called on the Committee to “End the Wars and Tax the Rich.”
Occupy v. Whole Foods? Activists Take Over Land Slated for Development and Start a Farm
Invoking the spirit of international peasant farmer movements La Via Campesina and Brazil’s Movimento Sem Terra, hundreds of people entered a five-acre plot of land at the Berkeley/Albany border on Sunday April 22, in one of this spring’s first high-profile actions of the Occupy movement. Their goal? To farm the land and share the food with the local community.
Under the banner “Occupy the Farm,” a coalition of local residents, farmers, students, researchers, and activists broke the lock and entered the UC Berkeley-owned Gill Tract on a sunny Sunday afternoon, bringing with them over 15,000 seedlings, a pair of rototillers and a half-dozen chickens in mobile chicken-tractors. Hundreds of people, including a dozen or so children, went to work clearing weeds, tilling garden beds, filling holes with compost, and planting seedlings. At the end of four hours, they’d planted an estimated three-quarters of an acre.
After last fall’s burst of Occupy actions raised a challenge to corporate control writ large, organizers of Occupy the Farm say they are kicking off the spring season with efforts to reclaim land not just as a way of occupying space, but to meet the needs of communities through food production.
Bloomberg News
Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence
Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.
Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.
In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s (BAC) 55-story tower.
“We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.
Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
***********************************************************************************************************
Psy – Ops
Consuming Kids – The Commercialization of Childhood (Full Film Documentary)
Uploaded by DaleCJay
Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Drawing on the insights of health care professionals, children’s advocates, and industry insiders, the film focuses on the explosive growth of child marketing in the wake of deregulation, showing how youth marketers have used the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and profitable consumer demographics in the world. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children’s marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids.
***********************************************************************************************************
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
