testemunha de terra

Testemunha de terra 3: Acting at a glacial pace

Submitted by Rick Eyre on July 10 2008, 3:49 pm

We're reliably informed that the spectacular breaking of ice from the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina on Monday has little to do with global warming, and more to go with the glacier's alignment.

Still, it's 91 years since ice has broken from this glacier during an Argentine winter. Video from Reuters:

Testemunha de Terra 2: Making wine, not rice

Submitted by Rick Eyre on April 24 2008, 9:59 pm

Australia has been a leading exporter of rice, supposedly feeding up to 40 million people worldwide. But decades of mismanagement of water allocations in the Murray-Darling river basin, exacerbated by the recent drought, has hit rice crops hard, despite the fact that Australian farmers have taken huge leaps in improving water efficiency in rice production.

But there's another problem. They can grow grapes on their land, using less water and making money from the booming wine industry. Yes, the hungry of the world risk playing second fiddle to middle-class Aussie tipplers.

Al Jazeera English visited the Riverina district of New South Wales for this report, which aired on April 23:

Testemunha de Terra 1: Protecting precious mangroves

Submitted by Rick Eyre on April 24 2008, 1:06 pm

This is the start of a public beta test vlog that I am trialling, utilising worldwide news sources that make available embeddable video reports on environmental/business themes. With Green Day having taken place on Tuesday, this seems as good a time as any to start.

To kick it off, a report from Reuters dated April 18. I know that the hoi polloi with their harbourside mansions in Sydney hate mangroves because they spoil those investment-hungry "harbour views", and that they attract the mozzies, but mangroves serve an extremely valuable role in the ecosystem, especially as protection against erosion. And it's believed that many thousands of lives could have been spared in the 2004 tsunami if mangroves hadn't been removed on the coasts of India, Sri Lanka and Sumatra.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reports that up to a third of the world's mangroves have disappeared. In the Republic of Congo Reuters Television meets a man who has taken up the challenge of saving his country's mangroves.