Stuart Franklin is turning air miles into trees. Franklin — the founder of a grassroots carbon offsetting project in Ecuador — calculates how many seedlings he has to put in the ground in order to generate a carbon bank big enough to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by tourists jetting to the popular Galapagos Islands each year.
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The city of Curitiba, in southern Brazil, is famous among urban planners for its innovation and rational development, with a reputation for being highly livable and very sustainable. It was one of the first cities to market itself as “green” in a 1980s advertising campaign. And it is.
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Israeli activist Jeff Halper came to Winnipeg at the end of January to speak about the current situation in Palestine-Israel, and about the work of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions. Temperatures outside plunged to almost minus forty. Inside the atmosphere was congenial — but Jeff had disturbing news to share.
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They’re scrubby, fierce with mosquitoes and impossible to walk through, but salt water mangroves are the guardians of Earth’s tropical coastlines and nurseries for her fish. Coastal mangroves are endangered by unsustainable fishing and cutting practices. The mangroves of southern Cambodia, on the Gulf of Thailand, are a case in point.
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Farmers and their cash crops … earning a living on the margins of global agriculture. Palestinian farmers face an entirely unique challenge. Israel’s so-called “Security Barrier” has actually walled them off from their olive and vegetable groves. The Annexation Wall – as Palestinians call it – prevents them from farming completely.
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Rwanda … Land of a Thousand Hills, in east-central Africa. Fourteen years after the awful 100-day genocide, Rwandans grow rice, bananas, tea and coffee as they have for generations. On one mountainside, villagers are earning extra money processing their own coffee beans — thanks to a fellow Rwandan educated in Canada.
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Think about threatened waters and their wildlife … what comes to mind? Whales … declining codfish stocks … bleached coral reefs. In the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico, tiny, luminescent creatures are taking it on the chin. Chemical and light pollution threaten to quench their bioluminescence.
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Few industries provoke as much controversy as mining. When powerful companies seek out concessions in poor countries, communities rally around democratic institutions to defend their land and water. From the Andean mountains of Peru, Jen Moore brings us this story about how a democratic vote saved the day … perhaps.
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Isabel La Torre knew they’d finally hit upon the right idea when women’s participation in the Central Coffee Organization of Northwestern Peru (CECANOR) more than doubled in less than three years. For more than three decades, this vibrant Peruvian coffee marketer has been interested in addressing gender inequity on the farm. But after various attempts, putting a dollar value on women’s work is what has made a difference.
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Southern Lebanese farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, their land has been a battleground and Israeli cluster bombs continue to pollute their fields. On the other hand, they’ve been abandoned by Lebanon’s political elite – many of them merchants – who prefer to see Lebanon import its food. A guy named Rami is helping them out.
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