About 90% of all lung cancers are caused by cigarette smoking. Smoking kills 7 million people a year, speeds aging, destroys the heart and cardiovascular system, and leads to asthma and COPD. But cigarettes don’t just wreak havoc on the human body; they also wreak havoc on the environment through deforestation, pollution, and littering. [1] [2]
Ricardo Vaz: You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now?
Brazilian Pataxo women take part in a ritual dance during a protest against a proposed constitutional amendment that would put the demarcation of indigenous lands into the hands of the Congress, in front of the Brazil’s National Congress, in Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 10, 2015.(AP/Eraldo Peres)
Indigenous peoples in Brazil will now be able to map, in almost real time, the deforestation in the Amazon.
An aerial shot shows the contrast between forest and agricultural landscapes near Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil. (Flickr/Kate Evans)
Experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew have just published their second ever State of the World’s Plants report. They reveal there are 390,000 known species of plants, with over 30,000 being used by humans. Unfortunately, the report also says that 1 in 5 plant species are in danger of extinction.
A Pataxo indigenous woman performs in front of police during the Indigenous Peoples Ritual March outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, April 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
A United Nations human rights expert has warned that Brazil is going through a “dangerous time”, as the country experiences political turmoil putting indigenous rights and environmental protection at risk.
On May 27, 2017, I spent some time with my copy of the late (1927-2015) Eli Sagan’s At the Dawn of Tyranny: The Origins of Individualism, Political Oppression, and the State (1985), and this morning (perhaps because of having done so) felt a need to spend some time with my copy of the late (1929-2007) David Maybury-Lewis’s
Children of a logger in the wait to be transported along the Lomami River, a tributary of the Congo River. Approximately 40 million people in the DRC depend on the rainforest for their basic needs, such as medicine, food or shelter. (Photo: Greenpeace/Jiro Ose)
A UK-backed deal to protect the world’s second largest rainforest is struggling, just over a year since it was signed and amid rising concerns over deforestation, corruption and political instability.
Outside Southeast Asia, few people know of Palembang, a city on Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. A gloomy and immense city, with almost two million inhabitants, most of them living in cramped and squalid conditions.
The tropical River Musi bisects the city, a desperately polluted waterway, bordered by slums built on stilts and a few old colonial buildings.
The director of sustainable forestry project ArBolivia explores how a business-focused approach to conservation could help safeguard the Amazon rainforest, and those who live thereThe post Growing lasting solutions to deforestation appeared first on Positive News.
The man-made environmental catastrophe is the severest issue facing humanity. It should be the number one priority for governments, but despite repeated calls from scientists, environmental groups and concerned citizens for years, short-term policies and economic self-interest are consistently given priority over the integrity of the planet and the health of the population.
Environmental inequality
