Did ancient peoples live in a Golden Age of stewardship of our planet? From forest clearances to catastrophic soil erosion, it’s clear that past civilizations had the same conflicted relationship with their environment as we do. But when it comes to how they dealt with those crises, is it fair to regard them as technologically backward?

Enter the elegant piece of land management technology called the terrace.

Terraces are a remarkably efficient way of dealing with the problems of erosion and water retention. A bare slope is too steep to hold roots or hold rainfall? Then chop it up into a series of flat surfaces. Terracing keeps soil on hillsides, helps rainwater sink into that soil and ultimately eat at the underlying bedrock (which is how soil is made), and allows roots to take hold. And best of all? All it requires is  a lot of hard work and, ideally, a good supply of stone to bolster the sides. As inventions go, it’s a rock-bottom bargain – and so it’s accessible to everyone, whatever their budget.

It’s also possible to see them as a social empowerment tool, by the poor, for the poor. In places where level terrain is scarce, who gets the flat land? The people with the most money – leaving the peasantry to make do with barren hills and slopes. Since well-maintained terraces can gradually improve the fertility of soil, terracing could be a form of investment for less wealthy farmers hunting for a way to build some capital and status…

Terracing has existed for thousands of years and in many parts of the world it’s still going strong today – even as a source of tourism revenue, as with the incredible Banaue Rice Terraces of the Philippines. They’re environmental management on a sometimes colossal scale…and anyone can have a go (if they’re prepared to sweat for it). Backward? Not if you’re one of the 99%.

Images: Indrik myneur, TheFutureIsUnwritten and bigberto.

The post Ecological Lessons From History: Farming For The 99% appeared first on EcoSalon.

Island life is a fragile thing.

Deciding to live on a remote island is to enter into a complex balancing-act with the local environment. Your arrival puts an unusual drain on the carrying capacity of the land – something you need to offset if you want to survive. You gamble that the climate will help rather than hinder you. You trust that bouts of extreme weather will be fleeting. However hard you work to establish a toe-hold, you could be knocked off your feet by any number of factors – including sheer bad luck.

Such is the case with the remote Scottish archipelago of St. Kilda.

Head forty miles west of the Outer Hebrides, deep into the Atlantic Ocean, and you’ll find a cluster of fang-like islands forming the archipelago of St. Kilda, one of the most savage-weathered parts of Britain (waves up to 5 meters high; recorded windspeeds as high as 130 mph). Its forbidding cliffs, often inaccessible from the sea, include the sheerest drop to sea level in the whole of the UK. This is not a place you linger.

Tell that to its previous inhabitants. There have been people on St Kilda for 2,000 years. Or rather, there were, until 1930. Thanks to a tragic combination of crop failure, accidental contamination of the land and an unsustainably low population (70 people in 1920; 37 in 1928), the delicate ecological balance that had sustained a hundred generations of human inhabitants was broken. The St Kildans were a dying community – even with their dwindled numbers, the land couldn’t support them. They were too far from the mainland to rely on food deliveries until the soil recovered. They had no choice. On August 29th 1930, the remaining inhabitants were evacuated off the low-lying main island (Hirta) and back to mainland Scotland.

Since that day, the island has had no permanent population. It’s now a World Heritage Site and an important seabird breeding station, a place of scientific interest…and a poignant reminder of our relationship with the land we stand on.

Images: CaptainOates.

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The endangered butterfly has become an ideal  insect for scientists measuring the damage of climate change

A new study published in Ecological Entomology shows some species of butterflies adapt much better than others to warming temperatures, especially in mountain landscapes.

Which are most at risk? It appears butterfly species which emerge later in the year or fly higher in the different elevations of a mountain range in central Spain have evolved to reproduce in a shorter window of time, and as a result, may fare worse than those that emerge over a longer period of time.

“We’re already expecting localized extinctions of about one third of butterfly species, so we need to understand how climate change will affect those that survive,” says Javier G. Illan, with the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University.

Illan’s group of researchers working at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid studied flight patterns of 32 butterfly species for five years at different elevations in a Mediterranean mountain range. They noted the delays in flight dates that occurred as a result of elevation change.

Butterflies are ultra sensitive to climate change and therefore good models for understanding the broader scope of ecological effects linked to insects in terms of pollination and herbivory. In fact, their flight dates are said to be good indicators of future responses to climate change .

Meanwhile, the Brown Argus has defied the odds. The rare British butterfly with orange and white spots near its wingtips is thriving rather than disappearing as a result of extreme temperatures as predicted.

As reported by Scientific American, the insects are on the move and expanding their range northwards some 40 miles, according to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. This means they are no longer solely dependent upon a single plant species, the Rockrose, which grows on south-facing slopes and absorbs the warmth the butterfly’s caterpillars require.

The Rockrose plant’s choice is cool weather, hosting caterpillars on the underside of leaves on south-facing hillsides, but balmier summer conditions has prompted the butterfly to warm up to new plants such as the Dove’s Foot Cranesbill.

This ability to adapt and expand north shows promise for some species. But according to ecologists, large range retractions in the south cannot be counterbalanced by the expansions in the north. In fact, About ten percent of all of Europe’s butterflies face extinction due to climate change, along with loss of grassland habitat from intensive farming and abandonment of traditional farming in Europe, forest fires and the expansion of tourism.

The same culprits threaten 14% of dragonflies and 11% of saprophytic beetles, according to the European Red List report for the European commission. Among the species listed as critically endangered – the striking Madeiran large white butterfly not spotted on the island of Madeira in twenty years; and the Macedonian Grayling which has suffered habitat loss due to quarrying.

Recently, Richard Pearson, a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, cited the Red List in a New York Times Opinion page, warning us that a mass extinction is afoot. Some 20,000 species of animals and plants around the globe are deemed high risks and such a rapid loss of so many has only occurred five times in the past 540 million years. Around 65 million years ago, the last mass extinction wiped out the dinosaurs.

Writing about the pending loss of life on the planet, Pearson, who is the author of Driven to Extinction: The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity, suggested “this should keep us awake at night.”

He also urged us to invest in ecosystem services considered public goods. “We need to put a realistic value on nature, and we need effective environmental legislation that protects entire ecosystems.”

The post Some Butterflies Doomed, Others Thrive, with Climate Change appeared first on EcoSalon.

“Water is the best of all things.” – Pindar

It’s one of the world’s worst sea-related ecological disasters, laying waste to thousands of miles of shoreline and ruining habitats and livelihoods on a truly terrifying scale – but suddenly, there’s new hope for recovery. No, nothing to do with this. Think bigger.

As recently as the 1960s, the Aral Sea of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was one of the world’s greatest lakes, covering a whopping 26,000 square miles. Then along came a Soviet government keen to industrialize by any means necessary. The water was diverted for cotton farm irrigation, salinity soared, pollution festered (pesticides, weapons testing, you name it), and the sea gave way to a desert, eerily dotted with stranded boats and fishing stations that hint at the terrible human impact on the region’s population. It’s environmental change so profound it’s even upset the local climate.

How do you recover from that? Answer: with a government looking to erase the damage done by Soviet rule, supported by the coffers of the World Bank. The North Aral (above at top, one of the three main remnants of the once mighty whole) was dammed in 2005, and now life is returning – most importantly, the fish. They’re critical to boost the economy and bring the money that’s badly needed for further redevelopment. How much damage can be undone, only time will tell – and while the North Aral is gradually (painfully) expanding outwards again, the southern sea remnants are just years away from dying up completely. Recovery? Maybe, but not in our lifetime.

Images: martijn.munneke and NASA Goddard Photo & Video

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Prod someone’s memory about Disney’s Finding Nemo, and you’ll find a fond thought or two for the chilled-out, backstroke-swimming dude called Crush the Sea Turtle. Just as Nemo turned clown-fish into ocean celebrities (with worrying consequences), sea turtles are now established as the languid, eccentric grandfathers of the sea, all thanks to those clever folk at Pixar.

But here’s the grim reality. All sea turtles are either threatened or endangered. Not cool.

The good news is there’s a Cousteau on the case – Fabien, grandson of world-famous ecologist and ocean pioneer Jacques (who would have been 100 this year). He’s working with biologist Dr. Wallace J. Nichols to fill the oceans with sea turtles – a billion of them. Sound absurd? Not when you consider that adult turtles each lay clutches of up to 250 eggs in just an hour-long sitting.

If you aspire to be one of the lucky ones hiding behind the shoreline of one of the special beaches of the world where turtles lay their young (e.g. Key Biscayne, Florida), the Billion Baby Turtle Project will work to protect the experience and the creatures behind it – and it all starts in El Salvador. From there, a worldwide network of government bodies, volunteers, non-profits and former egg collectors will work to shore up (as it were) the nesting grounds of turtles for generations to come.

Images: nosha, Marcio Cabral de Moura

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Imagine the consequences of 20 years of nuclear waste dumping in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea that surround the Italian Peninsula and its islands.

It’s an unfolding crisis that has the international community alarmed, including the fishing interests in Japan.

We’re talking about the coasts of 22 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and a pending ecological and public health disaster which is being allegedly swept under the rug by the Italian government.

I only learned about it recently in a Counterpunch post on the nightmare, passed along to me by a devastated reader. Meantime, the disaster is also catching on in the mainstream media.

The post writer, Michael Leonardi, is a university educator who lives in Calabria with his wife and baby. He says after returning from a visit to the States, he was alarmed to learn that the Tyrrhenian Sea – which his daughter has been bathing in since birth – was intentionally poisoned with toxic waste.

“How shocked and dismayed we were to discover that government officials have known about it all along,” he shares. “And how enraged we are that a journalist has been killed, possibly for trying to reveal the truth about the disposal of waste by the international Ecomafia and their colluding government and corporate interests.”

The journalist described was Rai television reporter Ilaria Alpi. Leonardi says she was following the trail of arms and toxic garbage trafficking from Italy to Somalia in 1994 when she and her camera man, Miran Hrovatin, were gunned down and killed in Mogadishu.

“Many here believe, including the Mafia pentito, Franceso Fonti, that she was killed because she learned too much about the collusion between the Mafia and Italian military,” argues a bold Leonardi.

So how is the dumping engineered by the bad guys?

Leonardi says dozens of ships with the radioactive and toxic cargoes have been intentionally sunk by organized crime syndicates.

Leonardi says epidemic levels of cancerous tumors and thyroid problems have occurred in the area and along the coasts of the Mediterranean – where fishermen make a living by selling their catch throughout Italian and on the international market.

The public outcry is heating up as Greenpeace and the Italian environmental organization Legambiente work to bring the disaster to the surface. CNN reported on the scuttled hips, as well, last week. The report says it is believed between 32 and 41 of the ships sunk in international waters between Italy, Greece and Spain.

Lending credence to the sinking, testimony by Franceso Fonti, who admitted his role in helping to sink three ships in the fishing waters, including the Cunsky.

Last week a robot sub was sent down off the coast of Centraro to shoot photos of the ship thought to be the Cunsky. The images document the presence of drums like those used to transport and store radioactive and toxic wastes. The hope is that the barrels are still in tact but no one knows for certain what they contain.

“Traces of Mercury and Cesnium 137 have recently been found near the town of Amantea in Calabria further south of Cetraro by about 50 kilimeters,” explains Leonardi. “Amantea is considered a “hot spot” for tumors and ground temperature around the contamination area is six degrees warmer than normal.

“The population is demanding the truth and government action,” he says, adding international cooperation is needed.

Images: enigmachck1, Wiki, Wiki

The post Ecomafia Radioactive Waste Dumping in Mediterranean: International Catastrophe Coming to Light appeared first on EcoSalon.

Stockholm-based Jantze Brogard Asshoff studio produces thoughtful, elegant designs. Founders Moa Jantze, Hanna Brogård and Johanna Asshoff strive to simplify their surroundings to improve everyday life.

“We create sophisticated, useful products with a poetic soul and playful character,” they explain. “Our backgrounds from different parts of Sweden will always be a great source of inspiration. We like to mix modern with traditional, folklore with decadent luxury and regional Swedish handicraft with industrial production.”

The results are apparent in the well-balanced red Bloom Chair with folksy flowers embroidered on felted wool. The little seat with steel and pipe construction was  inspired by the rich ornamentation of  past Scandinavian folk traditions by Moa Jantze.

Another innovative design is the upholstered felt Pinecone Pouf, a pouf with wool scales by Moa Jantze.

In recent weeks, the group showed off its Greenhouse container at a curated group show called Kitchen Ecology exhibited during Dwell on Design event in Los Angeles.

The modern designs of fresh international eco designers were featured, including Greenhouse by Jantze BrogÃ¥rd Asshoff, a paper house-shaped bin (think Monopoly houses where the porches are  pedals). When you step on the porch the roof opens up. It comes in different sizes to fit different types of garbage boxes and sorting.

“Greenhouse is a beautiful way to store and sort your garbage and fits both at home and in office spaces,” says the designers.

Look for more innovative green solutions from this upcoming Swedish team!

Images: Jantze Brogard Asshoff

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As the climate changes, so will the habitats of flora and fauna – changing far faster than natural adaptation can deal with. Mass extinctions are a very real threat. What to do?

One option on the table is a truly startling display of geoengineering. This week, scientists at Britain’s University of York (my home city, and a hotbed of eco-innovation at the moment) have just released the results of an experiment to move a species of butterfly to the limits of its traditional temperature “comfort zone”, to be encouraged to embrace a new habitat. It did – and it’s thriving.

The technique is called Assisted Colonization – and the implications are immense. Entire populations could, at great expense, be moved out of one habitat to another, staying one step ahead of global warming and continuing to thrive in the wild. Only the species most at risk would be targeted for such drastic measures, such as small plant-life relying on the wind to migrate painfully slowly (via seed dispersal).

It’s tinkering with Nature on an epic scale, and critics are going to find it easy to sling mud. We still understand only a fraction of the complex interdependencies within an ecosystem. The danger – take away a supporting beam (ie. a creature that is a vital link in the food chain, or necessary to propagate other species, such as the way bees pollinate apple trees), and the whole structure crashes down.

Are the risks worth the rewards?

Image: Paraflyer

The post Have Species, Will Travel: Reasonable or Reckless? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Will your years of good green living end with a natural, good green death?

It’s a sensitive topic – so sensitive, many of us can’t embrace it. I cringed some years back when my book group chose to read Mary Roach’s Stiff: Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. The last thing I wanted to do was cuddle up with a read about how to dispose of our bodies: donating organs to eager medical school students, cremation, wrapping remains in biodegradable burial shrouds before returning them to the earth. Still, I managed to trudge through it.

Stiff, published at the height of HBO’s Six Feet Under craze, introduced me to the notion of natural burials and got me thinking about such choices. You should consider them as well.

According to the Centre for Natural Burial in Canada, the modern concept for this alternative approach first began in the UK in 1993 and has since spread globally. A relatively new idea, it focuses on methods that conserve, sustain and protect the earth from which we came and shall return. In other words, your concern for the planet (driving a hybrid, sparing landfills of bad plastics, using reusable shopping bags) doesn’t have to die when your time has come.

The body is prepared for burial in a simple shroud or placed in a biodegradable casket made of locally harvested wood, wicker or recycled paper. No embalming chemicals are used to prepare the body, natural markers like shrubs and trees replace headstones, and burial grounds are often protected preserves in which the natural burial protects and restores nature. There’s no need for irrigation, herbicides or pesticides to sustain the habitat.

The benefits to the planet are obvious, but is it right for your family? “It’s a big leap for some and a thankful change for others,” observes Kathy Curry of the Fernwood Funeral Home in upscale and earthy Mill Valley, California. Fernwood’s natural burials are located on a diverse, 32-acre site adjacent to the Golden Gate National Recreation areas. “It really appeals to environmentalists and people looking to do something more simple, people who don’t like the excess of a big fancy casket and funeral.”

Indeed, the metal caskets and other excesses of conventional burials are taking a huge ecological toll on our planet, according to Joe Sehee of the Green Burial Council, considered the green standard for eco-friendly burial methods in the United States. “We are burying some 800,000 gallons of fluids known to contain carcinogens, along with enough metal each year to rebuild the Golden Gate Bridge and enough concrete to fill a two-lane highway,” he told me. “The lid is being lifted on what we are spending and wasting, and that is what we are trying to get away from.”

Sehee sees the concept moving into the mainstream quickly with supply having trouble keeping up with demand, including a surge in green cremation practices, up from 3% in the 1960’s to as high as 70% in parts of California and almost 50% nationally. “Most people don’t want to impede the process of regeneration by embalming and spending $5,000 on a box, which is what we have been doing over the last 100 years in the industry,” he says.

The recession could also increase the trend. At Fernwood, you might spend $7,500 on a natural burial while an ornate burial can cost well over $20,000. Curry points out that in the U.S., some plots alone sell for as much as $60,000.

Meantime, those opting for green should be careful, suggests Sehee, who warns some mortuaries falsely advertise chemical-free and healthy grasses, but are guilty of green washing. One reason his council was established was to keep the once underground movement of alternative burials well above board.

Image: batega

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Geoengineering. Now there’s a word to make you shiver.

We’ve had an unhappy history of manipulating our environment for our own benefit – or rather, successful for us in the short term. The shift from shortsighted plundering of natural resources to informed scientific trials – the exciting new field of applied ecology – has been a painful one, littered with devastating blunders that are still going on. But will it allow us to correct those mistakes?

This week a report from the England’s University of East Anglia, led by Tim Lenton, Professor in Earth System Science, concluded that the myriad methods of geoengineering could complement conservation techniques around the globe, although they alone couldn’t halt global warming. These techniques could include: the use of oceanic algae blooms to absorb C02 and the artificial stimulation of other natural carbon sinks; solar radiation management such as increasing the amount of reflective – or at least non-absorbing – material on and above the planet’s surface, such as making clouds reflect more sunlight by using fine water sprays, or most exotically, using space mirrors; and the creation of highly fertile soils by lacing them with charcoal, nicknamed “biochar“.

It’s a controversial topic, and to many hardline environmentalists, a very hard sell. Hasn’t anthropogenic climate change caused all our problems in the first place? Aren’t the stakes too high, the results too unpredictable? Or do the Earth sciences and our industrial ingenuity hold some of the answers we so desperately need?

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