Monday, January 22, 2007
India: The Walk to Find Knowledge
Although India is experiencing huge economic growth, it is also a place where 700 million people still live in the countryside, a world away from the nation's newly acquired shiny image. But among this vast rural population lies a wealth of wisdom and expertise that has a value all of its own. I have just been on a pilgrimage, on foot, across a bit of rural India. Not to get to a shrine, a saint or a temple. The point of the walk was the villages we encountered on the way, and the traditional skills and knowledge locked up in them.
Friday, January 19, 2007
U.N. Program to Plant 1 Billion Trees Gets French Backers
The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) has signed on several French companies to its "Plant for the Planet: the Billion Tree Campaign." Groups like the French Ministry of Agriculture, the National Museum of Natural History, and others have agreed to support the plan to plant 1 billion trees by 2008. The program has already received pledges to plant 157 million trees; 5.5 million of them coming from France.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
California: Plot to Thicken with 40,000 Seedlings
In a wetland restoration plan twice as big as last year's, Save the Bay is plotting to plant 40,000 native seedlings around the San Francisco Bay this winter. The environmental-advocacy group seeks volunteers for the ambitious campaign that includes areas such as Bair Island in Redwood City, already part of a larger restoration program, and parts of Palo Alto. "The overall goal is to restore 100,000 acres in the Bay Area to tidal wetlands in partnership with other agencies."
Friday, January 05, 2007
UK: £1m Paid for New Nature Reserve
A 445-acre site once earmarked for landfill is to be turned into a heath and woodland nature reserve after being bought by a charity for nearly £1m. The site, west of the A26 and south of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was originally heathland but has been covered by conifer plantations for 50 years.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Alabama: Foundation Plans to Plant 150,000 Trees in Bankhead
Bankhead National Forest is in the first group of forests to benefit from a plan to plant 50 million trees in the nation’s public lands. The National Arbor Day Foundation is planting 150,000 trees in Bankhead this winter to help the U.S. Forest Service, which has spent so much money fighting fires and forest pests that it has not had money to budget for forest repair.
