Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza, will arrive in Indonesia on October 6 to promote forest and climate conservation as part of the environmentalist organization`s `Forest for Climate` campaign, a spokesperson said.

The Esperanza would arrive in Jayapura, Papua, on October 6 and remain until Nov 15 to spotlight the need to defend the last remaining natural forests in Indonesia, according to Greenpeace media campaigner Nabiha Shahab in an e-mail to Antara on Saturday.

“The last natural forests are to be found in a belt that stretches from South East Asia through Papua New Guinea to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific,” she said.

The natural forests consist of tropical rain, mangrove , coastal and peatland forests that are home to many kinds of plants and animals non-existent in other parts of the world. These forests also held hundreds of original cultures and traditions.

“Indonesia`s forests are shrinking at a very fast rate. Deforestation destroys people, cultures, and biodiversity. It also accounts for about 20 percent of the world`s gas emission which eventually causes climate change,” said Rustar Maitar, spokesperson for Southeast Asia Greenpeace`s Forest Campaign.

The campaign director of Southeast Asia Greenpeace, Shailendra Yashwant, said Esperanza`s visit to Indonesia was meant to urge the government to implement a moratorium soon on all forms of forest conversion, including industrial deforestation, expansion of oil palm plantations, and other activities which can cause deforestation

Esperanza is the biggest ship in Greenpeace`s fleet. Launched in February 2002, it is 72m long and can cruise at a maximum speed of 16 knots.

On its journey to Indonesia, the ship will have Madeline Habib as captain.

Source: http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2008/9/27/greenpeace-ship-visits-indonesia-to-promote-forest-conservation/

From The Understory, the official blog of the Rainforest Action Network

On Lake Minnetonka today, just down the road from Cargill’s world headquarters, the rainforest agribusiness campaign set sail amongst the hundred or so sailboats participating in a regatta in Wayzata Harbor. We turned an M-20 sailboat into a floating banner in order to send Cargill a clear message in their own backyard. The main sail read, “Cargill: Biofueling Climate Change.” A green canoe paddled alongside the sailboat with a massive helium balloon attached to it that read, “Cargill: Foe to the Family Farmer.”

We know that many Cargill executives, as well as Cargill family members (Cargill is privately held and 90% family owned) live, work, and play on Lake Minnetonka. Yet, many in the surrounding community (an insular, wealthy town of approximately 4,000 people) seem to be unaware of the fact that Cargill’s operations are contributing to rainforest destruction, the often-violent displacement of small farmers and Indigenous communities and climate change.

Cargill’s insatiable appetite for converting ever-more land across the globe into green deserts of soy and palm oil makes them a primary culprit in exacerbating our climate crisis. Cargill is a top investor, trader and transporter of soy and palm oil. Cargill is the fourth-largest exporter of palm oil from Malaysia and holds 14,000 acres of plantations–all on newly cleared forestland–throughout Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Cargill is also currently finishing construction on a soy processing facility and mega-port in Asuncion, Paraguay, only 500 meters upstream from the main public water utility, raising grave concerns about contamination of the entire capital city’s water supply.

Cargill corporation operates with impunity and blatant disregard for the environment and human rights. Today’s action on the lake was intended to precipitate a few ripples. These ripples are only getting bigger, as the wave of resistance grows in opposition to corporations such as Cargill who show minimal initiative or leadership in finding legitimate solutions to our climate crisis.

Orangutan Outreach would like to honor Paul Newman not only because of his amazing career in Hollywood, but also for his charity work with his Newman’s Own brand. Newman’s Own brand does not use palm oil that has been sourced from Indonesia and Malaysia. They care about orangutans and don’t want to see them harmed.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Newman. The world will miss you.

The following excerpt comes from the Newman’s Own website:

Newman’s Own®, Inc., founded on a lark by Paul Newman and his buddy A.E. Hotchner in 1982, is now (to our own surprise!), a leading (and growing) premium food company that offers more than 150 varieties of delicious all-natural food and beverage products. Based in Westport, CT, the charitable mission of Newman’s Own is expressed in its Company motto: “Shameless exploitation in pursuit of the Common Good.” Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation donate all profits and royalties after taxes for educational and charitable purposes. Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation have given more than $250 million to thousands of charities worldwide.

Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Read about the life of Paul Newman in The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations launched a program on Wednesday that it hopes could be the foundation for a system in which rich countries would pay poor ones to slow climate change by protecting and planting forests.

The new program, called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Programme, or UN-REDD, will assist nine developing countries, including Bolivia, Indonesia and Zambia, in establishing
systems to monitor, assess and report forest cover.

“Forests are worth more alive than dead … and their ecosystem services and benefits are worth billions if not trillions of dollars if only we capture these in economic models,” said Achim Steiner, the executive
director of the UN Environment Program.

Clearing forests for timber and farmland in developing nations emits nearly 20 percent of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, according to the UN’s climate science panel. Trees store heat-trapping carbon dioxide as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned.

Tropical countries are pushing to include UN-REDD in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Delegates representing countries around the globe are scheduled to meet in Copenhagen at the end of next year in hopes of hammering out a successor to the pact, which expires in 2012.

Under such a plan, the tropical countries would generate tradable carbon credits by saving and planting trees. Indonesia, for example, has the potential to be compensated US$1 billion a year if its deforestation rate was reduced to 1 million hectares annually, the UN estimated.

Presumably, rich countries would buy the credits to meet their own emission limits, like the way European Union countries have invested in credits representing emissions cuts generated by clean energy projects in poor countries.

Not everyone agrees such a program would be a good idea. Barry Gardiner, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s special envoy for forests, said in an interview earlier this month that the model of avoided deforestation is flawed and risks alienating voters in rich countries.

Gardiner proposed instead that rich countries should simply make payments to tropical nations based on the size of existing forests. If countries continued to log or burn they could be expelled from the scheme.

Almost all nations at a round of fractious UN climate treaty talks in Ghana last month expressed support for including ways to avoid deforestation in a new UN pact.

Norway, which is looking for ways to offset carbon dioxide emissions from its growing natural gas export business, donated US$35 million to finance the initial phase of UN-REDD.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Cynthia Osterman)
(Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn in London)

Source: Reuters

Isabella goes ape over palm oil products
By CARLY TAWHIAO - Auckland City Harbour News | Friday, 19 September 2008

Young conservationist: Isabella Wilson, 10, led a campaign against palm oil to help save orang-utans. Photo: JASON OXENHAM/Auckland City Harbour News

“Truly amazing.”

That’s how Isabella Wilson felt after being named Young Conservationist of the Year.

She won Auckland Zoo’s inaugural award last week for her commitment to orang-utan conservation.

“I absolutely screamed,” the 10-year-old says.

“It feels amazing - like I could change the world.”

Isabella campaigned against palm oil because of its toll on the orangutan’s natural jungle habitat.

“The orangutans aren’t doing anything to us, but we are killing them,” she says.

“We all need to stop buying products that contain palm oil from these countries and demand manufacturers to use other sources of vegetable oil.”

Isabella became aware of the issue after visiting the orang-utan enclosure at the zoo in February.

She immediately set out to rid her pantry of products containing palm oil, and her grandparents and neighbours; too.

The Pt Chevalier Primary pupil also gave a presentation to her school about the threat palm oil production, resulting in the school removing products containing palm oil from the tuck-shop.

Auckland Zoo conservation officer Peter Fraser commends Isabella for standing up for what she believes in, even though it has involved personal sacrifice. “She is a shining example of how people with passion and drive can really make a difference,” he says.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/sundaystartimes/auckland/4697242a6497.html

This story is not about orangutans– but a very worthwhile read nonetheless. The orangutans sure could use the support of someone like Gary Michelson! Mayor Bloomberg, Ms. Winfrey, Mr. Jobs– are you listening?? ~ Rich

David Whelan
Source: Forbes Magazine

Medical inventor Gary Michelson got rich waging lonely battles against big companies. Now he wants to spend much of his $2 billion to save unwanted dogs and cats.

Walking around a city animal shelter in west Los Angeles with Gary Michelson is like doing rounds at a hospital where the doctor knows every patient. The mutts, locked in concrete cells, bark like crazy when he walks by. Many will never find homes and will be euthanized. “The ones that are large, dark or old–they’re dead,” he says, watching two pit bulls bounce up and down. A lab mix snarls and tries to lunge through the bars at the billionaire. “If I brought that dog home for two weeks, it would be normal,” he says.

Strutting around in a tank top that shows off his tanned biceps and popping veins, Michelson gives off a thick cloud of manic energy everywhere he goes. He looks more like an aging Hollywood action hero than a genius inventor. A spine surgeon by training, Michelson got rich by licensing devices and instruments that aided in complicated back surgery. He got megarich by enforcing his patents in two epic legal cases. The last one, won in 2004, resulted in a $1.35 billion settlement with the manufacturer Medtronic (nyse: MDT - news - people ). Now he’s nearing 60, childless, divorced and still focused on work. But his passion is no longer surgery, it’s charity. Michelson says he will give away every cent, eventually north of $2 billion. He plans to use a scientific approach and commercial cunning on the problem of unwanted pets.

Six million animals a year are bumped off in shelters. Michelson has three adopted dogs, including a pit bull the size of a small couch. He views feel-good campaigns around adopting pets–the bread-and-butter of the mainstream animal welfare movement–as an important but incomplete part of the solution. Right now he has four dozen ideas that he thinks are more business-savvy and self-perpetuating.

Some are simple but novel, like paying for implantable microchips that will allow owners to reclaim lost dogs. Or paying a cat adopter to take two animals instead of one. Others are more exotic: sterilizing feral cats and then releasing them back to their colonies so they depopulate themselves. Michelson’s Found Animals Foundation is setting up pilot projects in Los Angeles to test some of these ideas. The most ambitious effort is what will be called the Michelson Prize, which he’s never spoken about publicly before. Michelson promises to pay $25 million to the inventor of a safe and effective injectable sterilant for cats and dogs. He will fund not only the prize but also the research that goes into it. That alone, he believes, would empty many animal shelters.

On the menu of philanthropy, pets don’t seem quite so flaky as they once did. There have been advances in handling strays; 40 years ago there were 115 dogs and cats killed by animal shelters for every 1,000 people, versus just 14 today. Now there is even more money pouring into the field, from more than one billionaire. Software entrepreneur David Duffield has donated $300 million since 1999 to a foundation dedicated to no-kill animal control. Hotelier and tax cheat Leona Helmsley died last year and reportedly left her estimated $5 billion estate to her Maltese named Trouble, and dogs generally.

Michelson’s interest in pets started during what he calls a difficult childhood, when his parents divorced (he was 11), money was tight and his dog was a source of comfort. As critics of pet charities are quick to point out, many humans are poor, sick, homeless and uneducated. Don’t they have a better claim on limited resources? Michelson argues that eliminating cruelty and promoting companionship are noble goals for any good society. Animals are like children in that they can’t speak up for themselves. They also receive 0.1% of all gifts. “Art museums do better. And that’s not charity. That’s tax evasion,” Michelson says.

Michelson grew up in Philadelphia, where he says he was initially an indifferent student. His grandmother’s struggle with a painful spinal condition inspired him to become a doctor and to focus on back surgery. At Hahnemann University in Philadelphia he sometimes upset professors by objecting to live animal dissections. He seems to have nursed a bitterness about his life into motivation. “I’ve been on my own since I was 17,” he says.

After graduating from medical school in 1975 and from an orthopedic surgery residency, also at Hahnemann, he followed his dream into what was then considered a backwater field. According to his version, spinal surgery was frequently unsuccessful, so doctors’ practices would fill up with “bent nails”–crippled patients in wheelchairs without much hope. Michelson spent extra time training in back surgery at a fellowship in Houston, then moved to Los Angeles in 1980.

While operating at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, Calif., Michelson became frustrated by how hard back surgery could be. His big hands didn’t have an easy time maneuvering inside the incisions. He began working at home on ideas for better instruments. In 1983 he hired a machinist to make him new tools. An early one involved a common neck operation, where a painful disc is pulled out of the cervical spine through a tiny incision with a tool called a curette. Michelson says that the curette blocked his view, so he designed one shaped like a bayonet.

Michelson’s daily routine as a young doctor was extreme. Living in Venice Beach, Michelson rose at 5:30 and did Jungian-guided visualization exercises to hone his confidence and focus. “A lot of people are scared to be themselves,” says Michelson, who references books like Self-Parenting and A Course in Miracles. After meditation he drove to work, met with his patients at 7 a.m., operated until 1 p.m., saw more patients in clinic until 6, then came home, walked his dogs, trained for triathlons and then spent much of the night in his garage on his inventions. He gave away his television to avoid distractions. He avoided marriage and fatherhood because he was so busy, and also because he thought he wouldn’t be very good at either. His work paid off. The instruments attracted notice, and soon his machinist was making extra sets for colleagues.

In the late 1980s his tiny manufacturing shop became a technology licensing outfit. Each invention was patented in minute detail, as he employed an entire patent law firm. Over time Michelson won or has applied for 900 patents, including European counterparts. The licensing company he started remained an off-hours activity, run by a former dog walker. Some of the inventions included devices that aid in spinal fusions and a plate used in neck surgery.

The licensing produced litigation. In 1995 he sued a subsidiary of U.S. Surgical (now Covidien) for infringing his patents on a fusion technology. The case won a large settlement that he is not allowed to talk about, although he confirms it was nine figures. His licensing revenue grew to $40 million annually. In 2001, when his dispute with Medtronic began, Michelson had a net worth, he says, of $300 million.

Medtronic had bought a smaller spinal device company that was Michelson’s biggest licensing client. The spine division and Michelson were soon at odds. Medtronic sued Michelson, claiming that he had broken the agreement by marketing his products to other manufacturers. Michelson countered by claiming that Medtronic was not making good on its promises or paying him enough royalties. “They were profoundly cheating me,” he says. The case ended up in a federal courtroom in Memphis, where Michelson spent $62 million on a posse of 36 litigators.

Michelson spent some of his off-hours during the trial playing with stray cats and feeding squirrels, his lawyer Marc Cohen recalls. On weekends he would have another attorney feed the strays. After a five-month trial ending in 2004 the jury awarded him $510 million. The two sides negotiated a deal whereby Michelson would not pull his patents from Medtronic’s spinal division if it paid him up front for all of them. The total bill of $1.35 billion set a record and catapulted him onto The Forbes 400.

Michelson did not recover from waging the legal battle, he says, until he stopped hating his enemies at Medtronic. “Vengeance is gnawing on a leg and looking down and realizing it’s your own,” he says, quoting another spiritual guidebook. Michelson says he was unable to sleep well for four years, had to give up his medical practice, got divorced (he had married in 2000) and developed high blood pressure. His personal life appears to remain unmoored. He was recently engaged, but his fiancée broke it off three weeks before the wedding. He’d like kids but fears he’s getting too old to be around for long enough. He lives in a mostly unfurnished home in one of Los Angeles’ canyons.

After the last big case was settled and his net worth quadrupled, Michelson started to focus on philanthropy. He practiced ad hoc giving, responding to stories in newspapers that moved him. He gave money to a girl from a gang-ridden neighborhood who was shot in the face while studying social work.

Michelson’s big giving is more structured. He’s funded medical research through his own $100 million foundation, along with the Hereditary Disease Foundation in New York. That group had isolated the gene for Huntington’s disease in 1983, which paved the way for the human genome project. Michelson started focusing on an area of genetic research called RNA interference. Different species (humans versus apes) have similar genomes but obviously quite different appearances and behavior. The theory is that big differences come from the way in which certain RNA molecules copy DNA sequences into proteins. Michelson is convinced that someday the knowledge gained from the research will allow doctors to flip genetic switches to cure human diseases. He says half of his money will go to human research.

Michelson has a hunch that RNA interference may also be key to creating an injectable method of sterilizing cats and dogs. In most cities the cat and dog population stabilizes if 70% are spayed and neutered. A cheap sterilant could quickly close the gap.

An interim solution involves setting up high-volume spay-and-neuter clinics that can do dozens of operations a day for a fraction of what a full-service vet charges. “Back-yard breeders always say the litter was ‘unexpected,’” he says. “That’s like sleeping with your girlfriend when she’s off birth control. She gets pregnant and you call it unexpected.”

His foundation has hired seven people, including a director, Aimee Gilbreath, a Stanford M.B.A. who worked at Boston Consulting Group. They’ve learned that Michelson’s money opens doors quickly but is also a magnet for wackos. A suicidal cat hoarder who had been raided by animal control officers called recently to beg for money. Michelson appears to have found the one cause that animates him as much as his business life did. “There’s no limit to the number of good causes,” he says. “I have to pick the one that makes me feel the best.”

Source: Rainforest Portal

PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE

Major victory for Ecological Internet’s campaign to end ancient forest logging as key response to climate and biodiversity crises

By Earth’s Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet
Dr. Glen Barry, +1 (920) 664-1965, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

FSC logging destroys ancient forests(Earth) — Friends of the Earth (FoE) is the first major international NGO to confirm they no longer support Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification [search], which falsely suggests primary and old-growth forest logging is desirable and even sustainable, and that plantations are forests. This is a major victory for those including Ecological Internet (EI) and FSC-Watch[1] who have courageously taken on large environmental interests using FSC to greenwash ancient forest destruction.

FoE pioneered timber certification during the 1980s and was one of FSC’s founders, but FoE International in Amsterdam has confirmed that it is now “reviewing” its membership of the organization. FoE UK announced on their website[2] they are “deeply concerned by the number of FSC certifications that are now sparking controversy and threatening the credibility of the scheme. We cannot support a scheme that fails to guarantee high environmental and social standards. As a result we can no longer recommend the FSC standard.”

“FoE is to be commended for their courage in admitting all forest certification schemes including FSC are failing forests, climate and peoples globally. FSC plantation and ancient forest logging standards have been shown to be a fraud — business as usual forest destruction. We welcome reports that other European NGOs may follow FoE’s lead, and demand that Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and WWF stop their stonewalling and follow suit, or face escalating disruptive protests” warns Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet’s President. “Then together as one we can work to end ancient forest logging.”

EI has long sought protection for all the Earth’s remaining primary and old-growth forests. These efforts were stymied by large environmental bureaucracies falsely suggesting cutting carbon and species rich, centuries old trees is an environmental good. It became obvious the world’s forests could only be protected, and global ecological sustainability achieved, if groups supporting FSC were confronted. Our protest campaign launched last year, assisted by recent overwhelming ecological science showing old-growth forests continue to store and remove carbon and are essential to fighting climate change[3].

More Information:
[1] For more information see http://www.fsc-watch.org/
[2] See their statement at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/faqs/sustainable_timber_fsc.html
[3] See earlier EI release at:
http://forests.org/blog/2008/09/feature-old-growth-carbon-find.asp

###ENDS###

Dr. Glen Barry is a global spokesperson on behalf of global environmental sustainability policy. Ecological Internet provides the world’s leading climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/. Dr. Barry frequently conducts interviews on the latest climate, forest and water policy developments and can be reached at: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org, +1 (920) 664-1965.

Photos by Binsar Bakkara | AP

On Wednesday (17 Sept),Animal conservationists in Indonesia rescued Mutia, a 16 year-old Sumatran Orangutan, who was chained to a pipe at an abandoned garment factory in Medan, Indonesia. Orangutans are an endangered species with wild populations threatened by loss of habitat, and increasing contact with human populations. They are often illegally kept as pets in Indonesia.

Cages Opened at Florida Primate Breeder; At Least 20 Non-Human Primates Get a Chance at Freedom from Torture

Miami, FL: According to a communique received by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office this week, cages containing twenty or more captive non-human primates at Worldwide Primates were opened by Animal Liberation Front activists. It is unclear how many individuals made their escape into the surrounding orchards, but those who didn’t escape are destined for lives of misery in vivisection laboratories. Worldwide Primates, located at 16450 SW 180th Street in Miami, is operated by Matthew Block, who spent a year in prison after his conviction for smuggling baby orangutans into the United States.

The communique reads in full:

“Late on September 10 we entered the compound of Worldwide Primates (16450 SW 180th Street, Miami, Florida) and cut large holes in 4 outdoor cages. Each cage held 5 or 6 monkeys. There is no doubt that monkeys can survive in Florida. There are hundreds of wild monkeys in colonies across the state. Worldwide Primates is surrounded by fruit farms.

Worldwide Primates is the business of convicted baby orangutan smuggler Matthew Block. He spent one year in prison and then went back to work importing and selling primates to vivisection labs. Mr. Block, we haven’t forgotten you. Your work is still criminal in our eyes.
- Animal Liberation Front”

There has been increasing focus on the issue of non-human primates used for vivisection recently, including acts of sabotage against vivisectors who experiment on them in laboratories around the US. While animal rights activists believe that all vivisection should be abolished, ending the use of non-human primates in experimentation has become a focal point for many throughout the world. In an apparently well thought-out strategy that abolitionists have used historically to end Apartheid, the US slave trade and additional atrocities around the world, animal activists have now focused on a single issue, the abolition of primate vivisection.

In 2006 an Austrian Parliament agreed to a ban on ape experiments, and experiments on apes that are not in the interest of the subject are now illegal in principle in that country. A Spanish government resolution in June provided certain rights to self-integrity to great apes, including the right to not be experimented on by humans. And last September, 393 members of the European parliament voted to ban all primate experimentation in Europe.

Press Officer Jerry Vlasak, MD states: “There is increasing demand that non-human primates stop being placed in barren steel cages, tortured by humans and then killed in scientifically fraudulent, perverted and evil experiments; there are signs throughout the world that this a goal whose time has come. I wish all the luck to those offered freedom from Worldwide Primates in Florida, and urge the rest of the world to shutter companies like this that imprison, exploit and sell into slavery non-human primates.”

Source: Portland Independent Media Center
Read the original ALF communique

See the film online

Source: Echo.net

“Every year, there is one outstanding documentary that you cannot miss…That people will talk about because of its significance to the planet’s future…This coming year ‘The Burning Season’ is that documentary.” Hugh Jackman

Deep in the lush tropical rainforest of Kalimantan Danish-born Lone Droscher-Nielsen runs a healing centre for injured and orphaned orangutans. Meanwhile, award-winning local filmmaker Cathy Henkel boards a flight to New York to meet with the World Bank and Al Gore, while Tibetan–Australian carbon trading activist Dorjee Sun is invited for an audience with his holiness the Dalai Lama.

This is the dramatic aftermath of Cathy Henkel’s “The Burning Season” which will screen on International Peace Day, Sunday 21 September, in the last sneak preview prior to major international release.

“I have so many orangutans in my house I think I’ll have to move out.” Lone was so distressed by the imminent extinction of the orangutan due to the burning of their forests to plant palm oil, she dedicated her life to rescuing and caring for thousands of orangutans snatched from death in the burning forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan. The plight of the orangutan highlights the urgent need to act now on climate change. The Burning Season film warns the extinction of the orangutan could occur within 2-3 years. (www.orangutan.org.au, www.theburningseasonmovie.com). As well as destroying the habitat of critically-endangered orangutans, new scientific evidence shows that deforestation comprises 20% of global carbon emissions, contributing significantly to climate change.

For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated - the Arctic ice is melting quicker than many anticipated, accelerating sea level rise. Now small island nations, whose highest points are often only a few meters above sea level, are preparing evacuation plans to guarantee the survival of their populations.

President Remengesau of Palau, a small island in the Pacific, recently said: “Palau has lost at least one third of its coral reefs due to climate change …We also lost most of our agricultural production due to drought and extreme high tides. For island states, time is not running out. It has run out.” (avaaz.org)

Meanwhile in Australia, Professor Garnaut’s Report “paints a stark image of Australia as an energy dinosaur…the greenhouse gas emissions load in Australia’s electricity supply is 98 % higher than the average developed OECD country…The failure of politicians and businesses to grasp the significance of climate change means Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions per head are higher than nearly every country in the world except for the Arab oil sheikhdoms of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar… Bolivia and Brunei.”(SMH 6/9)

“In Indonesia, rainforest areas equivalent to 300 football fields are cut down and burnt every hour to clear land for crops such as palm oil.” Indonesia is identified as the third largest carbon emitter in the world.

Into this dire moment in human history steps Australian filmmaker Cathy Henkel who decides to make a documentary about the burning of the forests of Indonesia and what this means for global warming. By chance she meets Dorjee Sun – young Tibetan Australian carbon trading entrepreneur who agrees for Cathy to film his journey as he traverses the globe seeking carbon trading partners to save not only the orangutans but even more importantly, to save the planet from the millions of tons of carbon emissions created by the burning itself, as well as by the loss of the forests.

Cathy Henkel’s film is plotted like a tightly-paced adventure thriller. We get to see the exciting, suspenseful unfolding of events at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali with Prime Minister Rudd, Indonesian President Yudiyono, Al Gore and other world leaders playing the leading roles in the dramatic conclusion to the film.

Are the world’s leaders and opinion makers listening? Are we rising to the challenge posed by climate change?

As a result of the Garnaut Report steps are now being taken by the Rudd government to implement a carbon trading scheme. But while we diligently turn off our lights, buy bicycles and compost our rubbish, many of us are still left wondering : What is carbon trading? Will the changes being made be enough to save the Barrier Reef, the polar bear, the orangutan – even Byron itself – will our own towns survive the sea levels rising?

“Imagine the sea rising around you as your country literally disappears beneath your feet…This is not a dream, it’s the fearful reality for millions of people who live on islands around the world, from the Maldives to Papua New Guinea.

That is why these small islands have taken the unprecedented step of calling on the UN Security Council itself to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security…a challenge to global powers to end their complacency and tackle this lethal crisis with the urgency of wars.” (from www.avaaz.org petition)

For this reason “The Burning Season” was chosen to screen on 21 September, International Day of Peace, followed by a Forum: “Peace, Climate Change and You”– wherein a highly distinguished panel of experts will explore peace and climate change solutions.

The panel includes special guest speaker Markus Jackson, Founder of Greening Australia and currently Director of The Carbon Store, a specialist consultancy on greenhouse response. He was also until recently Managing Director of The Carbon Pool, a model business based on the storage of atmospheric carbon through sustainable reforestation and avoided deforestation.

As Managing Director of The Carbon Pool he delivered Australia’s biggest carbon trading deal to date when Rio Tinto Aluminum purchased nearly one million tonnes of carbon credits from the `Minding the Carbon Store’ project. This project, approved under the Commonwealth’ s Greenhouse Friendly initiative, saved over 12,000 hectares of Queensland bush from the bulldozers and reduced Australia’s greenhouse emissions by over 1.28 million tonnes of CO2. It was the first avoided deforestation project globally to be accounted against a national baseline.

Other panelists are:

Robert Rosen, BEc, Chairman of Rainforest Rescue, former Chairman of the Nature Conservation Trust of NSW and Director of Bush Heritage Australia and one of the pioneers of the Australian ethical investment industry.

Tony Gilding, Vice President of the Australian Orangutan Project and a founding member of the UN sponsored Great Ape Survival Project. He was for 10 years a director of Ecos Corporation, a highly regarded consultancy that advises global corporations on sustainability strategy.

Associate Professor Graham Jones, Director of the Centre for Regional Climate Change Studies at Southern Cross University, a specialist in climate science, adaptation & mitigation, interested in sustainable coasts & towns & developing sustainable industries for a low carbon economy.

Gareth Smith, Byron shire school counselor and peace activist, famous for ‘arresting’ Alexander Downer and attempting a ‘citizens arrest’ of John Howard for war crimes.

Robyn Francis, award-winning permaculture designer, educator and presenter, and founder of Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Education Centre, recently returned from Cuba.

Felicity Blake, travel writer, video journalist with an interest in ethnography, and Assistant Director of “The Burning Season”, who now divides her time between Byron & New York.

The Forum MC will be Giovanni Ebono with Sandra Heilpern as moderator.

With many people fearing the worst, “Peace, Climate Change and You” is a community forum which intends to give hope and encouragement to all those ready to take up the challenge to fight global warming together.

John Lewis, one of the forum organisers, says: ‘The complicated and creative approach needed from every one on the planet to empower this process of making peace with our environment, will need some very specialised skills and networks that have strong roots in this area. And links to many at-risk forested regions through out the world and particularly in our Asia Pacific sphere of potential influence.’

As Cathy Henkel says “We Can Do This! We can turn the tide on climate change!”

Which brings us back to the orangutans and what these magnificent creatures, who share 97% of our DNA, have to teach us about surviving the ‘burning season’.

“The Burning Season” will be screened at Byron Bay Community Cultural Centre Theatre on Sunday 21 September at 5pm[/b]; followed by “Peace, Climate Change and You” Forum at 7pm. Entry to the film is $10/5 and includes forum entry; the forum is by donation.

UN International Day of Peace will also be celebrated by a special Peace Market being held at Byron market, Butler St Reserve, with a peace flag drop, parade, ceremony, crystal bowls, 12 noon global link up and an array of peace activities and bands including Spaghetti Circus, Byron Hip Hop School & reggae roots group Fyah Walk.(see Echo Seven).

Presented by Byron Peace Group and Byron Harmony Team.
Enquiries: 66857789 or email peaceday08@yahoogroups.com

Companies and governments are turning to emissions trading as a weapon to fight climate change, in a carbon market worth US$64 billion last year.

Cap-and-trade plans force participants — often energy-intensive industries — to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is produced from burning fossil fuels.

New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday passed the Labour government’s climate change bill, which will introduce emissions trading from 2009.

The plan will eventually cover all emissions from the economy, but critics said it was too slow to phase in the crucial sectors such as agriculture, which makes up around half of the countries total emissions.

Australia’s leading climate guru Ross Garnaut last week said the Australian government should aim for an emissions cut of at least 10 percent by 2020 (based on 2000 levels), or up to 25 percent if a tougher target is adopted.

He also recommended that Aussie carbon prices be pegged at A$20 (US$16) a tonne from 2010, with only marginal increases for the first two years.

The 27-nation European Union launched its cap-and-trade scheme in 2005, while Canada is set to launch a market of its own in 2010.

US senators in June defeated a proposed federal US climate change bill which included cap and trade.

In another type of carbon market, countries and companies can trade carbon offsets under three, UN-led Kyoto Protocol schemes.

A full list of established and proposed schemes follows.

INTERNATIONAL PLANS

KYOTO PROTOCOL (United Nations) (1)

Launched: 2005

Mandatory for 37 developed signatory countries

Target: 5 percent reduction in 1990 emissions by 2008-2012

Contains three sub-schemes to help signatories meet targets:

1- Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): Developed countries can invest in clean energy projects in developing nations

2- Joint Implementation (JI): Rich countries can invest in clean energy projects in former communist countries or “economies in transition”

3- Assigned Amount Units (AAUs): Signatories can trade surplus emissions rights among themselves

First commitment period expires in 2012 and governments scrambling to negotiate a successor agreement.

EU ETS - European Union Emissions Trading Plan (2)

Launched: 2005 (Phase 1: 2005-2007, Phase 2: 2008-2012, Phase 3: 2013-2020)

Mandatory for 27 nations in EU

Covers around half of all EU emissions

Target: Reduce EU ETS emissions by 21 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels

Worth US$50 billion in 2007 (3)

PROPOSED NATIONAL PLANS

UNITED STATES

Mandatory cap-and-trade scheme proposed under Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act was rejected by the US Senate in June, but many observers expect either presidential candidate to introduce new climate legislation within first six months of their presidency.

CANADA (4)

Launch: 2010

Mandatory for all 10 provinces and three territories

Target: Reduce 2006 emissions by 20 percent by 2020

Plan covers 50 percent of Canada’s emissions

Potential problems: Alberta already has a provincial scheme and several provinces have joined US regional plans.

JAPAN (5)

Currently a voluntary plan (JVETS), and government trialling a mandatory scheme in autumn 2008.

Target: Cut emissions by 14 pct below current levels by 2020

JVETS (voluntary scheme) - Launched: 2005

Target: Cut emissions from a 2002-2004 average, using government-subsidized clean energy equipment

AUSTRALIA (6)

Launch: 2010

Mandatory - to cover 75 percent of Australian emissions

Target: First cap (2010-2012) to cut emissions to 8 percent above 1990 levels (Australia’s Kyoto target). Medium-term caps could be 10-25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, while long-term targets “should reflect increasing levels of ambition” and move country towards an eventual goal of reducing 2000 emissions by 60 percent by 2050.

NEW ZEALAND (7)

Launch: Obligations start in 2008, trading starts in 2009

Mandatory - includes forestry in 2008, electricity in 2010, transport fuels (16 pct of total emissions) in 2011 and agricultural waste (47 pct of total emissions) from 2013.

Target: To be announced

Participants will receive permits representing 90 percent of 2005 emissions between 2013-2018. Free permits will then be phased out from 2019 to have full auctioning by 2029. Importing HFC and PFC offsets to be restricted until 2013, and using AAUs for compliance will only be allowed between 2008-2012.

Auckland’s TZ1 exchange has been appointed to be VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard) registry.

Sources: (1) UNFCCC

(2) European Commission

(3) World Bank

(4) Environment Canada

(5) Japanese government

(6) Australian government

(7) New Zealand government, Barclays Capital (Compiled by Michael Szabo; Editing by David Fogarty)

Last May, as the school year was drawing to a close, 9-year-old Kegan Miller gave a presentation on orangutans to his classmates.

Kegan is involved in the Academically Talented Program at Martin Luther King, Jr. School in Westwood in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is currently 9 years old and has entered the 4th grade for the 2008-09 school year.

Kegan had decided that he wanted to raise money to help protect orangutans so he came up with an action plan that included advertising to do odd jobs before and after school (His dad is a teacher there.) When all was said and done, Kegan had managed to raise $57 for Orangutan Outreach.

In order to prepare for his presentation, Kegan made several trips to the Toledo Zoo to learn more about orangutans. After doing his research, he prepared visual aids for the speech and finally gave the speech in front of his classmates.

Thank you for caring about the orangutans, Kegan! We’ve sent you a surprise to show our appreciation!