Along the Amazon in Peru

June 15, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment

The government intends to expand and deepen the River Amazon’s tributaries to allow passage for large container ships and is meeting stiff resistance from the region’s indigenous peoples.

A decrepit old cargo ship is the only means of transport on the Amazon in Peru. South America’s great river is still relatively narrow here, but it’s also the only lifeline for the region’s people and economy. We travel on the Eduardo III, an overcrowded steamship on its three-day voyage up the winding river from Yurimaguas to Iquitos. Timber and other goods are loaded in chaotic ports, and people doze in hammocks on the cramped passenger deck as the ship passes through one of the last untouched natural paradises in the world. If Peru’s government goes ahead with its plans, the Amazon region in the northeast of the country will soon be developed and links to the country’s economic infrastructure significantly improved. A Chinese company, for example, is to deepen the Amazon tributaries Marañón, Ucayali and Huallaga to allow large container ships all-year passage. But the excavation project is highly controversial and the region’s indigenous peoples are putting up a stiff fight against it. Water has a deep spiritual meaning for the tribes of the Amazon, who believe the spirits of their ancestors live on in the river. But will Peru’s advocates of progress allow objections like that to get in their way of their plans?

“What now? Next steps on climate change” with Christiana Figueres

June 5, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment

The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, was a seminal moment in the world’s struggle to fight climate change. 197 countries agreed to limit the rise in global average temperature to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. But Christiana, who led those global climate negotiations as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, says the climate agreement was just a staging post in what remains a long, hard process. So what are the next steps?

Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016.

During her tenure at the UNFCCC Ms Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, in which 197 sovereign nations agreed on a collaborative path forward to limit future global warming to well below 2C. For this achievement Ms Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.

Ms. Figueres is a founding partner of Global Optimism Ltd., a purpose driven enterprise focused on social and environmental change. She is currently a member of the The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School; the Convenor of Mission 2020, Vice-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, World Bank Climate Leader, ACCIONA Board Member, WRIBoard Member, Fellow of Conservation International, and Advisory Board member of Formula E, Unilever and ENI.

Ecosia Tree Update

June 4, 2019 / activist360 / Leave a comment

Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees.

Their latest tree update comes from one of Ecosia’s first grown forests in Borneo, Indonesia, where their searches are helping restore the habitat of endangered wildlife species like the orangutan. Ecosia started planting trees in Indonesia only two and a half years ago. Today, the forest is slowly coming back, which is creating economic value for the local farmers whose livelihood depends on forest goods like nuts, fruits and medicinal herbs.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, and after the first nine months of collaboration with Eden Reforestation Projects in Haiti, they have planted 230,000 trees. These trees will protect watersheds from erosion and, as they grow over the years, their roots will absorb rainwater, halting floods that damage people’s houses and farming lands.

Their tree-planting partners in Burkina Faso are now also working in Mali. Hommes et Terre is applying the same techniques in this neighbouring country who shares their climatic conditions. Half-moon shaped holes have been dug up in the planting sites and in the following months Ecosia-financed seeds will be planted in them, waiting for the next rainy season to start growing and re-greening the desert.

Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees. Every month they invest at least 80% of their surplus in tree planting projects all over the world.