Arctic: Keep it In My Backyard (KIMBY)
The Arctic Council is meeting this week in Kiruna Sweden an appropriately choice for the venue considering that mans’ impacts on the Arctic climate will be high on the agenda. Kiruna hosts the largest underground iron mine in the world where in response to ground deformations caused by mining, the city will be relocated over the coming years. Later this week at Kiruna the eight Arctic States (Russia, Finland, Denmark for Greenland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the U.S. and Canada) will sign a ‘Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response’ agreement. The agreement aims to strengthen cooperation, coordination and mutual assistance on pollution preparedness and response in the Arctic in order to protect the marine environment from pollution by oil. Despite this noble promise the agreement does little more than reinforce existing international agreements.
Arctic: Keep it In My Backyard (KIMBY)
The Arctic Council is meeting this week in Kiruna Sweden an appropriately choice for the venue considering that mans’ impacts on the Arctic climate will be high on the agenda. Kiruna hosts the largest underground iron mine in the world where in response to ground deformations caused by mining, the city will be relocated over the coming years. Later this week at Kiruna the eight Arctic States (Russia, Finland, Denmark for Greenland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the U.S. and Canada) will sign a ‘Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response’ agreement. The agreement aims to strengthen cooperation, coordination and mutual assistance on pollution preparedness and response in the Arctic in order to protect the marine environment from pollution by oil. Despite this noble promise the agreement does little more than reinforce existing international agreements.
Would you please revive the species?
CITES – Bangkok
Press Release # 8
Animal species are extinguished. The plenary of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) in Bangkok was the opportunity to bury, without ceremony, the Thylacinus cynocephalus and some other species wiped off the planet in the past century. Their family trees date back several million years. Extinctions are accelerating.
These biological disasters are not caused by any disruptions in climate, geological mutations or functional inadequacies. Mankind is the conductor of these disasters, wreaking havoc through risky manipulations or introductions and through radical exploitation of its surroundings.
CITES: Over 40 years old and long in the tooth
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
CITES 2013 – Bangkok
At its signature 40 years ago, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, was visionary; a fact highlighted by speeches at Bangkok during the opening of its 16 plenary session. Today, it’s falling behind. CITES is disconnected from chemical and radioactive contamination of wildlife, climate change, political chaos and population changes that increase the speed of the extinction of biodiversity.
