An Array of Utopian Flowers
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Defensible Space: My Wildfire-Appropriate Retrofit Journey – Part I
Posted on November 16, 2018 | No Comments -
KXL Blocked – How Indigenous People Will End Tar Sands Pipelines
Posted on November 12, 2018 | No Comments -
Mythological Journey to the Aztec Underworld
Posted on October 10, 2018 | 1 Comment -
Confronting Wildfire: Retrofit Communities, Not Forests
Posted on September 17, 2018 | 1 Comment -
San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dangers Compound
Posted on September 4, 2018 | No Comments
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WilderUtopia in 102 Languages
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Earth Archive
Anthropocene Arrives, Climate Collapses, and No One Cares
Posted on February 17, 2018 | 2 CommentsClive Hamilton writes on how governments, people, corporations, the world continues to plan for the future as if climate scientists don’t exist. The greatest shame is the absence of a sense of tragedy.
Dark Omen: Climate Chaos Converges with Solar Eclipse Wisdom
Posted on September 13, 2017 | 2 CommentsSince the solar eclipse of 2017, climate and tectonic instability has accelerated across the Earth: Rehearsal for the End Times? Predicted fossil fueled climate disruption and superstorm cataclysm? Sun-Moon alignment that bulged the Earth's crust, precipitating earthquakes? What really is happening here? We survey scientific, religious, and traditional indigenous belief for answers.
Ecuadorean Amazon Under Oil Assault to Service Chinese Debt
Posted on July 5, 2016 | No CommentsEcuadorean state capitalism has sacrificed significant tracts of one of the planet's most important biosphere reserves, Yasuni National Park in the Amazonian region, to a massive new oil drilling project. It threatens multiple indigenous territories and the area's biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.
Baram Dam: Protecting Wild Borneo, One Blockade at a Time
Posted on December 19, 2015 | No CommentsIn the Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, rampant industrial destruction is being stopped by people banding together to protect their communities, and the land. The Baram Dam proposal was just put on hold in response to a two year protest. But threats, and the corruption behind them, will continue.
Wild Cuba: Accidental Eden, Endangered
Posted on November 30, 2015 | No CommentsCuba may have been restricted politically and economically for the past 50 years, but its borders have remained open to wildlife for which Cuba’s undeveloped islands are an irresistible draw.
Mass Species Extinction and Wilding the Wilderness
Posted on November 14, 2015 | 1 CommentChristopher Ketcham writes on our continuing anthropogenic (human-caused) extinction, and the ineffectual and often misguided attempts at appeasement for the destroyers of wilderness and consumers of the Earth's bounty. E.O. Wilson's push for parks and wilderness connected by corridors: half for us, half for them, might just be the answer.
China’s Latest Earth Assault: Trans-Amazonian Railway
Posted on May 23, 2015 | No CommentsEnvironmentalists push back against more Chinese-financed plans to construct 5,300km (3,300-mile) route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to cut transport costs
An Orangutan’s Journey Though Palm Oil Killing Fields
Posted on December 8, 2014 | No CommentsThe film "Green" documents deforestation and orangutan extinction in the Indonesian rainforest. It is a silent film (without narration) presenting the treasures of rainforest biodiversity and the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations.
Drilling in the Caribbean: Honduran Indigenous Communities Speak Out
Posted on November 25, 2014 | 3 CommentsIn 2013, the Honduran government granted BG Group oil and gas exploration rights in a 35,000 square kilometer block off the Caribbean Coast of the Moskitia. Miskitu and Garifuna community leaders, in the absence of organized support from environmental NGOs and scientists, are speaking out to defend their territories from oil and gas activity.
Nicaragua: Scientists Advise Scrapping Destructive Gran Canal
Posted on October 29, 2014 | 3 CommentsThe Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) — the world's largest association of tropical biologists and conservationists — warns about the impact on water security and indigenous people from Nicaragua's Gran Canal.
Indonesia: Peat Swamp Forest Protection Key to Climate
Posted on July 22, 2014 | 2 CommentsDuring the dry season in Sumatra, and hundreds of thousands of hectares of Indonesian peatland fires burn for months, releasing its massive storehouse of organic carbon. Those fires are a direct result of decades of forest and peatland destruction, which must be protected writes Loren Bell, saving ecosystems, air quality, and the global climate.
Land Grab in “Paradise”: Haiti’s Île à Vache Fights Back
Posted on June 17, 2014 | 2 CommentsWhile Ile à Vache, a 20-square mile island off of Haiti’s southern coast, has been promoted as a jewel of Caribbean ecotourism, the subsistence fishermen and farmers of the island have been ignored. As the government moves forward with development plans, the people have responded with a series of protests.
Great Canal of Nicaragua: Environmental Ruin and Fiscal Folly
Posted on May 21, 2014 | 5 CommentsA planned 300-kilometer Nicaraguan canal joining the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans could wreak environmental and cultural ruin, home of the Miskitu and other indigenous groups. Sam Gordon argues that many of the issues and impacts are hidden from public view and should require an independent environmental assessment.
Peru: lllegal Gold Mining versus Biodiversity and Ecotourism
Posted on April 9, 2014 | 2 CommentsA gold rush that accelerated with the onset of the 2008 global recession compounds the woes of the Amazon basin, laying waste to Peruvian rain forest and spilling tons of toxic mercury into the air and water.
Honduras: Narcotrafficking Leads to Native Dispossession, Deforestation
Posted on February 7, 2014 | 3 CommentsIn the isolated region of La Mosquitia, Honduras, narco-traffickers act as shock troops in the assault on native Miskitu, Tawahka, and Pech homelands, ruthlessly dispossessing residents and rapaciously converting forest commons to private pasture primed for sale to multinational corporations.
Honduras: Mega-Tourism and Garifuna Communities Collide
Posted on December 29, 2013 | 10 CommentsCanadian "Porn King" Randy Jorgensen's mega-tourism "development" projects are stirring conflict and destroying Afro-Caribbean Garífuna communities in Trujillo on the north coast of Honduras.
Asian Rosewood: Soaked in Blood
Posted on November 23, 2013 | 1 CommentDeep in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia grows a rare and beautiful tree whose wood is so highly prized that men will kill to possess it. In Thailand, environmental organizations and park rangers are fighting back against organized crime syndicates bent on logging it and smuggling it to the burgeoning Chinese market.
Honduras: Miskitu Facing Dams and Deforestation Granted Land Rights
Posted on September 13, 2013 | 1 CommentHonduras grants Miskitu People title to huge swath of coastal, border lands they occupy, but massive dams under construction on the Patuca River and pilfering of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve continue unabated in a region undergoing massive militarization.
“Sustainable” Palm Oil Conference Condones Honduran Land Conflicts
Posted on August 7, 2013 | 1 CommentInternational environmental and human rights campaigners condemn the 4th Latin American Palm Oil Conference to be held by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in Honduras on 6th-8th August. The site of deadly conflicts over land rights with alarming impacts to ecosystems and communities, sustainably produced palm oil in this Central American country is impossible. The World Wildlife Fund among other sponsors, are charged with greenwashing and condoning human rights abuses.
Oren Lyons: On the Unity of the Earth
Posted on July 25, 2013 | No CommentsChief Oren Lyons, distinguished member of the United Nations Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival, lectures on what happened to the millions of indigenous people who lived in North and South America when they were "discovered" and the past and present challenges for the Peacemakers, recently featured on KPFK's "American Indian Airwaves." Listen to the first part of the speech below. We also included a short talk from the Sacred Land Film Project.
Costa Rica: Conservationists Face Corruption and Drug Trafficking
Posted on July 15, 2013 | 3 CommentsThe murder of 26-year-old sea turtle conservationist Jairo Mora in late May exposed cracks in Costa Rica's international environmental image, and proved that protecting nature sometimes has a terrible cost. Official corruption, lax regulations, and drug trafficking threaten the environmental bounty of Central America's most visited country.
Bangladesh: A Flooding, Mega-Urbanizing, Climate Trap
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsIn Dhaka, climate change refugees are moving from the countryside and into squalid slums due to repeated monsoonal floods that have rendered traditional farmland unusable. A new documentary by Ami Vitale from the Knight Center for International Media wades through the floods, looking for solutions.
Stories of a Maya Rebirth: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth
Posted on September 8, 2012 | No CommentsThe documentary "Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth" presents an alternative worldview to industrial capitalism consuming the earth, following six young Maya into their daily and ceremonial life, revealing their determination to resist the destruction of their culture and environment.
Ecuador: Battle Between Living Systems and Oil at Yasuní National Park
Posted on September 4, 2012 | 2 CommentsEcuador abandons a plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation, putting Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. Unable to raise sufficient financing, President Correa plans to move forward with oil drilling in this wild Amazonian region, putting wildlife and willfully uncontacted tribes at risk.
Sustainable Biofuels? From Agro-Fueled Land Conflicts to Algae
Posted on April 28, 2012 | 4 CommentsCan scientists engineer a biofuel that will replace the environmental and climate destroying and evermore expensive fossil fuels central to the functioning of our urbanized civilization? The answer is no and yes.
