NewsRack: 'Conventions' news in 'NewsTrust Environment' topic for user newstrust

EU debates biopiracy law to protect indigenous people	1.5.2013	Guardian: Environment
Pharmaceutical firms would need to compensate indigenous people for using their knowhow in creating new medicines The European parliament is debating a draft biopiracy law requiring industry to compensate indigenous people if it makes commercial use of local knowledge such as plant-based medicines. Under the law – based on the international convention on access to biodiversity, the Nagoya protocol – the pharmaceuticals industry would need the written consent of local or indigenous people before exploring their region's genetic resources or making use of their traditional knowhow. Relevant authorities would have the power to sanction companies that fail to comply, protecting local interests from the predatory attitude of big European companies. German firm patents South African herb The draft report on access to genetic resources by Green MEP Sandrine Bélier cites as an example a German pharmaceutical company's dealings in South Africa. Pelargonium sidoides, a variety of ...
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Letters to the International Herald Tribune: When Politics Trumps Policy	28.2.2013	International Herald Tribune: Editorials
The political expediency of U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration is nothing new.
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Sooty ships may be geoengineering by accident	9.2.2013	New Scientist: Sex and Cloning
Sooty ships may be geoengineering by accident
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India Ink: Developing Countries Turn to Each Other for Conservation	23.10.2012	NYT > World
With much of the developed world cash-strapped, emerging nations take the lead on environmental issues.
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Op-Ed Contributors: How to Catch Fish and Save Fisheries	19.10.2012	International Herald Tribune: Editorials
Over-fishing is destroying a major food source. But we have not reached a point of no return. We have time. Solutions exist.
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US businessman defends controversial test	19.10.2012	Guardian: Environment
Russ George says he has been under a 'dark cloud of vilification' following his ocean fertilisation test off Canada's Pacific coast The American businessman who dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean has become a lone defender of his project, after a storm of criticism from indigenous peoples, the Canadian government and a UN biodiversity meeting in India. Russ George, who told the Globe and Mail that he is the world's leading "champion" of geoengineering, says he has been under a "dark cloud of vilification" since the Guardian broke news of an ocean fertilisation scheme, funded by an indigenous village on the Haida Gwaii islands, that aimed to make money in offset markets by sequestering carbon through artificial plankton blooms. "I'm not a rich, scheming businessman, right," he said . "That's not who I am … This is my heart's work, not my hip pocket work, right?" A US agency that loaned George's company 20 expensive ocean gliders said they had been ...
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25 primate species reported on brink of extinction	17.10.2012	Boston Globe: Latest
25 primate species reported on brink of extinction
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UN meeting reviews ways to save biodiversity	16.10.2012	Boston Globe: Latest
UN meeting reviews ways to save biodiversity
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India Ink: India Pledges Millions for Global Biodiversity	16.10.2012	NY Times: World
Finding common ground on environmental issues is important, prime minister says.
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Billions needed to slow loss, report warns	16.10.2012	Guardian: Environment
UN study says the amounts needed are insignificant compared with the costs of allowing the destruction to continue Hundreds of billions of pounds will need to be spent on preserving the world's biodiversity, if the destruction of habitats, species and natural resources is to be slowed, a new report for the United Nations has found . But the amounts needed are insignificant compared with the costs of allowing the destruction to continue, according to the study. These costs include water scarcity, declining agricultural productivity, climate change and the exhaustion of fish stocks. Taken together, the perils of our destruction of biodiversity represent one of the most serious threats to the world's future, so actions taken now to tackle these threats will pay off, in the both the short and the long term, it said. Pavan Sukhdev, the economist who was chief author of the report, said: "While there are some big numbers in this report [in terms of the money that must be spent], our panel ...
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Primates are in peril - Our relatives are almost extinct	16.10.2012	Earth Times
A new report highlights the 25 most endangered primate species. The new report, Primates In Peril, was published this week at the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity COP11.
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25 primate species reported on brink of extinction	15.10.2012	Star Tribune: Latest
Twenty-five species of monkeys, langurs, lemurs and gorillas are on the brink of extinction and need global action to protect them from increasing deforestation and illegal trafficking, researchers said Monday.
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Cost of saving endangered species £50bn a year, say experts	12.10.2012	The Guardian -- World Latest
Annual cost to protect species and habitats is less than half the amount spent on bankers' bonuses last year Spending on conservation projects must rise by "an order of magnitude" if governments are to meet their pledges to manage protected areas and halt the spectacular rate of extinctions caused by human activity. A stark assessment from an international collaboration of conservation groups and universities reveals the enormous shortfall in funds required to save species, and warns that costs are likely to increase, the longer action is delayed. To reduce the risk of extinction for all threatened species would cost up to $4.76bn (£2.97bn) every year, they say, with a further $76.1bn (£47.4bn) required annually to establish and manage protected areas for species known to be at risk from habitat loss, hunting and other human activities. Though governments agreed in 2010 through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the rate of human-induced extinctions and to improve ...
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India Ink: In Hyderabad, a Focus on the World's Shrinking Biodiversity	11.10.2012	NY Times: World
Representatives from nearly 200 countries met in South India to discuss the planet's disappearing species.
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Countries 'failing to act' on Nagoya biodiversity promises	8.10.2012	The Guardian -- World Latest
Only 14 of 193 nations have acted on a landmark deal to protect endangered species and habitats, WWF warns Less than one in 10 of the countries that signed up to a landmark agreement two years ago to protect endangered species and habitats has taken action to implement the deal, according to the conservation group WWF. The warning comes as officials from more than 190 countries meet in Hyderabad on Monday for a major meeting on safeguarding nature. On the agenda is how governments fund and enact the targets agreed in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010, to halve the loss of natural habitats and increase the area of the world's land taken up by nature reserves from less than 10% currently to 17% by 2020. Named after the region around Nagoya, the Aichi biodiversity targets also called for a marine protected zones to increase from 1% of the world's seas to 10% by 2020. As the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) got underway today, ...
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Teacher, student to attend CoP-11	30.9.2012	Deccan Chronicle: Cities

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Keystone XL’s Beetlemania	8.8.2012	American Prospect
(AP Photo/St. Louis Zoo) T he carcass of a passenger pigeon weighed in at exactly the size they preferred. Dead prairie chickens did, too. They aren’t so picky about the carcasses they bury: mammals will do as well as birds, but the bigger the carcass—which allows them to produce and feed more offspring—the better for our friend the American burying beetle. The males find the carcasses and send out hormonal signals to attract potential mates. Coupled up, the largest beetles tend to win rights to a particular carcass, which they roll up, bury underground, and coat with preservative chemicals. When the couple’s eggs hatch in an underground chamber they’ve dug adjacent to their carcass, the larvae have a sumptuous feast ready for them. Once, these orange-marked beetles—the largest of the carrion beetles found on this continent—spread up and down America’s east coast and through the Midwest. But now, no one knows quite why there are so few. Humans may be at fault, edging in ...
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All eyes on China's green leap forward	14.6.2012	New Scientist: Living World
All eyes on China's green leap forward
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How Biodiversity Loss is Like LeBron James & Miami Heat	9.6.2012	Think Progres
JR: With game 7 of Heat vs. Celtics tonight, it seems like an apt time for this repost. by Michael D. Lemonick, via Climate Central Ecologists have been saying for decades now that the world is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. Hundreds of species are vanishing every year, thanks to assaults to the [...]
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The International Day for Biological Diversity - 22nd May 2012	22.5.2012	Earth Times
The International Day for Biological Diversity falls on 22nd May each year. This year the theme is Marine Biodiversity. The challenges facing marine biodiversity are unprecedented and only concerted world-wide action can avert its complete collapse.
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