Earth, Environment & Endangered Species 02 (Apr 11 - Sep 15)

[winston]

French crusader for gibbons in Borneo jungle by Loic Vennin

For 15 years Aurelien Brule has lived in the Indonesian jungle, crusading against palm oil multinationals, loggers and corruption in his bid to save endangered gibbons from annihilation.

He admits that his is a losing battle. The primates are being pushed out of their natural habitat by loggers removing the equivalent of six football fields-worth of jungle "every minute" to make way for palm oil plantations.

Around 100,000 gibbons remain in the forests of Borneo, but there will be few left within the next 15-20 years according to Brule with up to 1.5 million hectares of jungle lost every year, despite the efforts of conservationists.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

Spectacular natural phenomena

http://news.malaysia.msn.com/photoviewe ... 08#image=1

[winston]

Asia fuels record elephant, rhino killings: WWF by Karl Malakunas

Releasing a report rating countries' efforts at stopping the trade in endangered species, WWF said elephant poaching was at crisis levels in central Africa while the survival of rhinos was under grave threat in South Africa.

In parts of Asia, rhino horns are highly prized for their use in traditional medicines -- some believe they can cure cancer -- while elephants' ivory has for centuries been regarded as a precious decoration.

Global efforts to stem the trade have been under way for years, but China, Thailand and Vietnam are allowing black markets in various endangered species to flourish by failing to adequately police key areas, according to WWF.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[kennynah]

no one is covering those blood diamonds that have a huge market in europe?

i will still makan shark's fins. i have no interests in rhino horns nor ivory tasks...

[winston]

The Global Brain

Peter Russell’s award-winning video, based on a live audio-visual presentation in 1983.

He explores the idea that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary being.

It suggests that we stand on the threshold of a major leap in evolution, as significant as the emergence of life itself, and the essence of this leap is inner spiritual evolution.

Moreover, Peter Russell maintains that it is only through such a shift in consciousness that we will be able to manage successfully the global crisis now facing us.

http://www.mindbendingvideos.com/the-global-brain/

[winston]

The True Rulers of the Planet by Alexander Green

It's summertime. That makes it easy to hate bugs right now.

It's not just the occasional bite or sting or weekend picnic invasion. Insects devour about a third of the world's food crops each year. They destroy wooden buildings, ruin stored grain and accelerate the process of decay.

Mosquitoes - which transmit diseases such as the West Nile virus, malaria and Dengue fever - kill almost two million people annually. (Even tsetse flies are responsible for 66,000 annual deaths.) And bees kill more people each year than all poisonous snakes combined.

Insects are our biggest competitors for food, fiber and other natural resources. Economists estimate that insects consume or destroy 10 percent of gross national product in large, industrialized countries and up to 25 percent of gross national product in some developing nations.

Yet before you shoo, squash, or swat that little fellow in front of you, pause to recognize that insects are also our cherished allies. Indeed, we could not exist without them. They were here 400 million years before us and, in many ways, still rule the planet.

[winston]

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Insects dominate the temperate zones, making up a significant percentage of the earth's total biomass. There are around 200 million insects for every person alive today - approximately 9 billion per square mile of habitable land.

Ants alone, of which there may be 10 thousand trillion, weigh roughly as much as all 6.5 billion human beings.

We have formally classified about one million species of insects so far. And we're only just getting started.

Entomologists estimate that the total number ranges between four million and 30 million.

And they are amazingly diverse. We have identified 290,000 species of beetles, for example, yet millions more remain unclassified. There are more types of insects than any other kind of animal - and more types of beetles than any other insect.

Once, when the distinguished British biologist J.B.S. Haldane was asked by a group of theologians what one could conclude about the nature of the Creator from a study of the creation, Haldane replied, "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

[winston]

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We spend billions of dollars a year on pesticides and extermination services. Yet insects also make us (and save us) billions.

A 2006 study by Cornell University entomologist John Losey found that bugs add $57 billion a year to the U.S. economy. Dung beetles save ranchers some $380 million a year by decomposing waste and helping return nutrients to the soil, reducing the need for fertilizers.

Since they prey on each other, bugs also provide more than $4.5 billion in agricultural pest control. (Hey, it's organic.) And, since insects offer themselves up daily as food for native wildlife (from rainbow trout to ring-necked pheasants to black bears), they also support a $50-billion recreation industry in our national parks and wilderness areas.

Insects are helping solve world hunger, too. In the U.S., more than four million bee colonies produce over 90,000 tons of honey annually. Total global honey production is estimated at 884,000 tons a year.

[winston]

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Plus, many in non-western countries dine on locusts, ants, termites, caterpillars, grasshoppers and grubs.

According to informed sources (braver than me), beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts and worms (not really insects) like fried bacon.

Advocates point out that bugs are high in protein and other nutrients. For instance, a 100-gram portion of grasshopper meat contains 20.6 grams of protein, just seven grams less than an equivalent portion of beef.

In addition, insect farming requires less water, less feed, and less land per calorie than traditional livestock farming. It also produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Insects, too, are invaluable tools for scientific research, thanks to their rapid reproduction rate and the ease of keeping them in laboratories. The first association between pathogens and disease grew out of Louis Pasteur's studies of silkworm diseases.

Grasshoppers and cockroaches are used as test animals to study the effect of chemicals on nerves. The geneticist's fruit fly has contributed greatly to our knowledge of chromosome structure, mutation and sex-linked inheritance

[winston]

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And the ecological services that insects provide are simply incalculable.

Ladybugs, mantids and other predatory insects eat aphids and other insects harmful to plants. Termites - while unwelcome behind your walls - decompose the wood in forests and help bring nutrients back to the soil.

Many species of flowering plants owe their very existence to insect pollinators. Honeybees, in particular, are responsible for 80 percent of the pollination in the United States, affecting some $20 billion in crops each year, including almonds, apples, cherries, blueberries, cucumbers, squash and melons.

In The Creation, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Harvard professor E.O. Wilson writes, "People need insects to survive, but insects do not need us.

If all humankind were to disappear tomorrow, it is unlikely that a single insect species would go extinct, except three forms of human body and head lice ... But if insects were to vanish, the terrestrial environment would soon collapse into chaos."