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Wednesday, 26 May 2010 07:00 |
ENN is looking at ways we can improve our website to better serve you. Please take 5 minutes to complete a user survey to help us. The results of our user survey will help us see which parts of our current site are most valuable to you, and which ones you may find less useful.
Going forward, we will keep what is working, and make some changes to incorporate new elements that people want.
We appreciate that your time is very valuable, and are giving away an Apple iPad as a thank you to one lucky person who completes the survey. The lucky winner can use the iPad to check the news on ENN from any wi-Fi hotspot. It may also be useful for other tasks.
The survey will run for a month, and the winner will be announced after the end of the survey period.
To participate in the survey and to enter the iPad drawing, visit this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ENN
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
Talk of ecological diversity or saving rare species does not fly very far in Mato Grosso.
The state is Brazil's top soy producer, churning out an annual harvest of about 18 million tones. Fields of emerald green line the highways, stretching out to horizons so flat they look drawn with a ruler.
The crops have helped fuel Brazil's economic boom of recent years but they come at a price -- the clearing of more than 130,000 square km (50,000 square miles) of Amazon rain forest in the state from 1988 through 2008, to the widespread condemnation of environmental groups.
Years of acrimony have built up. When a visitor mentions environmentalists, the faces of Mato Grosso farmers often cloud with hostility.
So, with "save the world" emotional appeals not working, environmentalists are turning to economic arguments, stressing how preserving the world's largest forest can mean bigger profits for farmers.
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
Eating organic foods has lots of benefits, from protecting the environment to helping you stay slim and healthier.
Now, Rodale Inc. CEO and Chairman Maria Rodale is out with a book called "Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe."
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
Workers who apply certain pesticides to farm fields are twice as likely to contract melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to a new scientific study.
The researchers identified six pesticides that, with repeated exposure, doubled the risk of skin cancer among farmers and other workers who applied them to crops.
The findings add to evidence suggesting that frequent use of pesticides could raise the risk of melanoma. Rates of the disease have tripled in the United States in the last 30 years, with sun exposure identified as the major cause.
Four of the chemicals - maneb, mancozeb, methyl-parathion and carbaryl - are used in the United States on a variety of crops, including nuts, vegetables and fruits. Two others, benomyl and ethyl-parathion, were voluntarily cancelled by their manufacturers in 2008.
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
Urbanization may be having unexpected impacts in the Amazon rainforest by leaving forest areas vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders, report researchers writing in Conservation Letters. Conducting field surveys during the course of 10,000-kilometers of travel along remote Amazon rivers, Luke Parry of Lancaster University found that a sharp decrease in rural habitation has not been accompanied by a decline in harvesting of wildlife and forest resources, indicating that urban populations exact a heavy toll on distant forests through hunting, fishing, logging, and harvesting of non-timber forest products.
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
A severe winter has left 4.5 million dead animals in stockyards across the Mongolian steppes, and many poor herders face the loss of all their property just before the important breeding season.
About a tenth of Mongolia's livestock may have perished, as deep snows cut off access to grazing and fodder.
The damage to the rural economy could increase demands on Mongolia's already-stretched national budget, which relies on mining revenues to meet spending commitments.
The Red Cross launched an emergency appeal for 1 million Swiss francs to assist Mongolian herders, after it estimated that 4.5 million livestock have died in the country since December.
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
The Earth is truly a blue planet; 70% of its surface is covered with water. Unfortunately 97.5% of that is salt water, unusable for humans. Fresh water accounts for the other 2.5%, however, about two thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and in the icy poles. That leaves humans (and every other living creature on land) only about 1% of all the water on Earth to use.
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Monday, 26 April 2010 12:34 |
The story of how a group of dissatisfied residents pulled together, got funding, and created a blooming community garden where the work, and the rewards, are shared
Not far from the 2012 Olympic Village in Stratford, another local regeneration project, albeit on a much smaller scale, has energised a small residential street.
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