rainforest

Kayapó Tribe Fights Deforestation

- Adam Clare

The International Herald Tribune has a really nice article about a tribe in the Amazon that is fighting deforestation. The author recounts his previous experience of going into the Amazon and compares that to what it is like today. It actually starts off rather depressing since the environmental destruction is so prominent, but what makes the article so good is how hard the Kayapó is working to protect this invaluable natural resource.

“The Kayapó grand chief, Megaron, is leading the fight to preserve their lands that form the largest tropical rain forest reserve in the world.”

The tribe has had quite a few success in defending the forest from “development.” Let’s hope they never give up!

Brazil and India Defend Nature

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Last year India saw that biopiracy was damaging to the country and they reacted by documenting every plant and will release an encyclopedia of all the plants. They are specifically recording how these plants are used in traditional medicine in India, making it much harder for large foreign corporations to proclaim the use of plants as their idea.

Brazil is now doing something similar:

“Brazil has published a list of more than 5,000 generic terms from the Portuguese language related to Brazilian plant biological diversity to raise awareness and prevent further misuse of trademarks that hinder Brazilian exports.

The Brazilian government has been, and is, involved in a number of trademark disputes with companies that, for example, take a name of a fruit in Brazilian Portuguese and trademark it to get exclusive rights to commercialise it under that name in a certain country or region.”

Greenpeace’s McVictory

- Adam Clare

mcvictory Greenpeace is reporting great success in their campaign to get McDonald’s to better respect the environment. This is really great for the rainforest!

“In recent years, the seemingly unstoppable expansion of soya farming in the Amazon had become one of the main threats to the world’s largest rainforest. The soya wasn’t being used to feed the world; instead it was used to feed farm animals destined for fast food and supermarket chains across Europe.”

The campaign to get McDonald’s to change their destructive was launched only in April of this year. The name of the campaign is rather witty – Eating up the Amazaon.

“The result is that McDonald’s and other big food retailers have worked with us to develop a zero deforestation plan. The plan will also help bring an end to the land-grabbing and social injustice that is rife in the Amazon.”

Scroll To Top