'Now is the time for change! We cannot drill our way out of an energy crisis! The age of fossil fuels is over! Shell, we do not want our Karoo to be another Niger Delta,' a brave speaker addressed Shell with a referral to the egregious exploitation of Nigeria's oil reserves by multinationals such as Shell. 'Use your voices my friends; blog, tweet, Facebook and rally your petition!'
Industrial ecologists use the term "partially diminished fraction," or PDF, to assess the extent to which a product somewhere along its life cycle harms ecosystems.
African governance was praised at UN headquarters in New York when the winners of the 2011 Future Policy Award were announced: Rwanda's National Forest Policy was proclaimed the winner of the 2011 Future Policy Award and The Gambia's Community Forest Policy took home a Silver Award.
The prize is awarded annually by the World Future Council, a foundation that brings the interests of future generations to the centre of policy making. The jury which decided on the winning policies was composed of experts on sustainability and forests from all five continents.
Runners-up were forest policies from Bhutan, Nepal and Switzerland. The US Lacey Act's 2008 amendment, which bans the import of illegally harvested wood, received the second Silver Award.
2011 - The UN International Year of Forests - focuses global attention on the plight of the world's forests. Our forests provide carbon sequestration, climate regulation and are host to an astounding variety of biodiversity ' surely it makes more sense to protect them!
In the months of May and June, a total of 600 ready-grown indigenous trees donated by Just Trees nursery in Paarl will be planted in Tokai Park, part of the Cape's magnificent Table Mountain National Park and an offshoot of South African National Parks' shade tree planting project.
On Tuesday, 19th of October 2010, the Faculty of Sciences and representatives of Economic Sciences and Engineering, celebrated 'Green Month' on campus by planting some sixteen indigenous trees at Coetzenburg, on the slopes of the mountain. The Natural Sciences Student Committee (NSC) started the initiative in co-operation with Property Services when they decided to plant a tree at the close of their term. Ms. Shaan Pool, one of the NSC members started the initial discussions with Ms. Meg Pittaway from Property Services, who suggested an area above the Sports Institute of Stellenbosch University, where they were clearing pine trees damaged during the devastating fires that swept across Stellenbosch Mountain in 2007.
The 16th September marks another greening day for the residents of Olievenhoutbosch as Audi and FTFA celebrate Arbor Month and the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
Pick n Pay, together with Food & Trees for Africa's (FTFA) award-winning Trees for Homes Programme, yesterday planted 66 trees at K206 Park in Alexandra in celebration of Arbor Month.
No man is an island, so the saying goes. Well here's a story of how one island transformed a group of neighbours into a community.
Stranack Road Island, shaped like a rugby ball, was once the home of four proud flamboyants (Delonix regia - see below).
The spectacular saffron umbrella of its flowers in summer seduced many of the residents to buy here. In 2008, however, the 80 year old trees became the target of a rather aggressive and destructive insect.
'Honey has been waiting for almost ten million years for a good biography. Essential to the food, drink, religion, economics, medicine and arts of every civilization since the Egyptians, honey ' and the bees that make it ' have been a vital part of the human record for millennia.'
The amount of farmland being taken in Africa to meet Europe's increasing demand for biofuels is underestimated and out of control, new investigations by Friends of the Earth reveal today.
The research, which looked at 11 African countries, found at least five million hectares of land ' an area the size of Denmark ' is being acquired by foreign companies to produce biofuels mainly for the European market.
Poisonous spays from farms drifting onto people, `workers, children, family and neighbours` is finally coming to a head in the Boland.
We urge you to attend a public meeting to be held in Stellenbosch on Tuesday 24 November 2009 @ 15h00 to address the problem of pesticide drift poisoning the people of Stellenbosch and the surrounding areas.
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa guarantees the right of every person to live in an environment that is not harmful to their health and well being. However, exposure to pesticides, and in particular prolonged exposure to pesticides, poses very real health risks to both humans and the environment.
Long ago the City's southern suburbs consisted of many waterways - an ideal breeding ground for the Western Leopard Toad (Amietophrynus pantherinus). Then people moved in and erected walls around their properties, confining the frogs' normal movement and breeding patterns. Folk in this region still know these slippery chap, especially during the month of August, when they breed. But do you know that they're seriously threatened?
In early January my daughter and I set off on a trip to visit some of the Western Cape organic wine farms for a book I'm co-authoring.
A Stellenbosch University researcher working on aspects of climate change, Dr Susana Clusella-Trullas (pictured), has received an Antarctic Science 2010 Award to study how marine invertebrates on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic respond to changing temperature regimes.
