Archives: Environment

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is not just an environmental group — it is a monolith. It is also a big brand. And like all big corporate brands, it manages its media coverage quite well. There's so much of positive stories there to be read in the print media or seen on television, that you don't even know that there's a dark underbelly somewhere. Things, in fact,are so murky that your faith in the hitherto thought of as venerable NGO will stand shaken. Probably, for good. ...

This should come across as good news to one and all – Adidas has joined Nike and Puma in committing publicly to eliminate all discharges of hazardous chemicals throughout their supply chain and across the entire lifecycle of their products by 2020. The move from Adidas comes after a relentless detox campaign waged by environmental organisation Greenpeace International on the issue since July this year. Adidas acknowledged that Greenpeace had directed its campaign towards sporting goods companies in the belief that they can act as a catalyst for change for the whole industry. Why?...

Vedanta must be the best in the business when it comes to when it comes to managing the media. Either they are successfully able to block news from trickling out, or they can control what appears in the media. Quite often it is a combination of the two. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that reports of a recent toxic waste leak from Vedanta Aluminium Ltd’s Lanjigarh alumina refinery into a nearby river made no headlines in major news outlets in India. The Vedanta-Cairn deal, however, has been big news for a while now. ...

Compared to the 2G scam, the amount of this is probably nothing; but this has graver significance. A new report tells us that the subsidy on diesel has been aggressively exploited by the telecom sector, resulting in an annual loss of around Rs 2600 crore to the state exchequer. The Greenpeace report, Dirty Talking – A case for telecom to shift from diesel to renewable builds, on the previous industry and government research which show that at current growth rates, the sector would require 26 billion KWh of electricity and 3 billion litres of diesel by 2012, contributing...

The ten most at-risk forested hotspots around the world have have lost 90 per cent or more of their original habitat. Each harbours at least 1500 endemic plant species - species found nowhere else in the world. If these forests are lost, says Conservation International, those endemic species are also lost forever. To mark launch of the International Year of Forests on Wednesday, Conservation International has highlighted the ten most at-risk forested hotspots around the world. These forests potentially support the lives of close to one billion people who live in or around them, and...

The International Year of Forests 2011 is being officially launched today with the Nagoya ABS Protocol opening for signature by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Today is also World Wetlands Day, and the 40th anniversary of the Convention on Wetlands. This year the theme is “Forests for Water and Wetlands”. The 'Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity' was a key outcome of the October 2010 CBD meeting in Nagoya, Japan, and aims to...

Global warming is already affecting the earth in a variety of ways that demand our attention. Now, research carried out at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem indicates that many tree species might become extinct due to climate change if no action is taken in time. According to the research, trees which disperse their seeds by wind, such as pines and maples, will be unable to spread at a pace that can cope with expected climate changes. The research, which focused on the ecological consequences of expected changes in the climate and the environment on tree spread, was conducted by...

An official complaint has been filed against oil giant Shell for breaches of basic standards for responsible business set out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth International on Monday claimed that Shell’s use of discredited and misleading information to blame the majority of oil pollution on saboteurs in its Niger Delta operations has breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The complaint was filed with UK and Netherlands government contact points for the OECD. ...

The Brazilian floods that has claimed over 600 lives is deadliest natural disaster to have hit the country. This comes barely months after an unprecedented drought afflicted the Amazon region when water levels in the river's tributaries fell drastically. ...

Dow Chemical, chemical manufacturer Sasol North America and their contractors hired private investigators to spy on the environmental group Greenpeace, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. The 56-page lawsuit, filed by Greenpeace in federal district court in Washington, alleged that the companies and public relations firms Dezenhall Resources and Ketchum hired investigators who stole documents, tapped phones and hacked into computer networks between 1998 and 2000. "We believe it is every citizen's right to stand up for the health of their children and community without fearing...