More Than 24,000 Acres of Critical Habitat Protected for Western Snowy Plover

by the Center for Biological Diversity

PORTLAND, Ore.— In response to a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated 24,527 acres (38 square miles) of critical habitat to protect the Pacific Coast population of threatened western snowy plovers in Washington, Oregon and California.

“Protecting critical habitat will help this lovely shorebird continue on the path to recovery,” said Tierra Curry, a conservation biologist at the Center. “Species with federally protected habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery than species without it, so this puts a big safety net between plovers and extinction.”

Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army Road Show Dates Announced

Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army Tour Flyer

Those lovable eco-warriors in the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army , whose work we’ve shared here, are embarking on a month-long road show to present their newest puppet production, “Donny Quixote!” The show is a scathing critique of “green” capitalism and “green” technology told through a humorous adaptation of the story of Don Quixote. MRPA will present two other fun performances and travels with a distro of materials related to the content of the shows. This tour is to help build a culture of ecological resistance that embraces a diversity of tactics including direct action. The shows are designed to help audiences see through the false solutions capitalism proposes to ecological crises.

Three Hundred People Breach Earthen Dam, free Xingu River from Belo Monte project

by Amazon Watch

While the Brazilian Government prepares to host the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit, 3,000 kilometers north in the country’s Amazon region indigenous peoples, farmers, fisherfolk, activists and local residents affected by the construction of the massive Belo Monte Dam project began a symbolic peaceful occupation of the dam site to “free the Xingu River.”

In the early morning hours, three hundred women and children arrived in the hamlet of Belo Monte on the Transamazon Highway, and marched onto a temporary earthen dam recently built to impede the flow of the Xingu River. Using pick axes and shovels, local people who are being displaced by the project removed a strip of earthen dam to restore the Xingu’s natural flow.

Residents gathered in formation spelling out the words “Pare Belo Monte” meaning “Stop Belo Monte” to send a powerful message to the world prior to the gathering in Rio and demanding the cancellation of the $18 billion Belo Monte dam project (aerial photos of the human banner available upon request).

Demonstrators open a channel in an earthen dam across the Xingu River that paves the way for the Belo Monte Dam, June 15, 2012 (Photo by Atossa Soltani/ Amazon Watch / Spectral Q)

Demonstrators planted five hundred native açai trees to stabilize the riverbank that has been destroyed by the initial construction of the Belo Monte dam. They also erected 200 crosses on the banks of the Xingu to honor the lives of those lost defending the Amazon.

Also this morning, hundreds of residents of Altamira held a march to the headquarters of dam-building consortium NESA. The actions are part of Xingu+23, a multi-day series of festivities, debates and actions commemorating 23 years since the residents of the Xingu first defeated the original Belo Monte dam. Residents have been gathering in the community of San Antonio, a hamlet displaced by the consortium’s base of operations and in Altamira, a boomtown of 130,000 severely affected by the dam project.

Complexities of Collapse: Trade Routes and Resource Exhaustion in Mayan Civilization

by Jacqueline Howard

Maya history–and the civilization’s “collapse”–continue to occupy the minds of archeologists. Some research points to a series of droughts as playing an important role in the Maya demise. Other researchers propose the ancient Maya were less resilient to fight for survival due to religious beliefs.

And now Dr. Gary Feinman, an archaeologist at Chicago’s Field Museum, has suggested a new explanation. When he came face-to-face with a detailed map of trade patterns from an episode of Maya history–it was his “aha” moment, he said.

Dr. Feinman and a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago studied how the precious material obsidian, or volcanic glass, was traded and used by inland Maya communities during the Classic Period, just years before the mysterious Maya collapse.

When this research was displayed on the map, an interesting pattern emerged. The originally inland trade system evolved into a primarily coastal system, which suggested the inland Maya communities no longer had easy access to obsidian and other resources. After that, the populations in inland areas drastically declined.

Occupy the Biotech Food Empire; Monsanto and Friends Get Interrupted

by Steve Annear / BostInno.com

Dressed in contamination suits and waving around boxes of children’s cereal they say are pumped with Genetically Modified Organisms, protesters planted themselves outside of the International BIO Convention Monday to fight against a week-long meeting of mega-companies and biotechnology firms.

According to the group of activists, some of whom traveled all the way from Washington, D.C., while the “1 percent discusses industry strategies that compromise…biological heritage” inside the convention, protesters planned on educating the public, hosting sidewalk sessions, about pesticides, organic foods and anti-biotech initiatives.

Thousands Blockade Ski Resort Development in Bulgaria

A protester is detained by police during a flash mob organised by environmental protesters in central Sofia June 14, 2012. REUTERS/Dimitar Kyosemarliev

Dimitar Kyosemarliev/REUTERS

Police detained nine activists after over 1,500 people blocked a major Sofia intersection late on Thursday for a second day in a row in a protest against the controversial changes.

Chanting “We want nature, not concrete” and “We want veto on the forests law” over 100 people while police tried to push them out of the road.

Xena, Eco-Warrior Princess, Pleads Guilty to Environmental Trespass

By Christie D’Zurilla / La Times

Lucy Lawless was arrested in February after she and other activists boarded an oil-drilling ship in New Zealand and prevented it from leaving port. On Thursday she pleaded guilty to trespass charges. (Greenpeace / Associated Press / February 24, 2012)

Lucy Lawless did it, and she isn’t sorry she did it.

Of course, the “Spartacus” actress hopes her conviction on trespassing charges won’t hurt her career in the future by preventing her from entering countries that don’t dig folks with criminal records, but that’s almost beside the point.

“For the first time in my life, I put my body and reputation on the line to stand up for my beliefs and do the right thing,” she told the Associated Press after appearing in court. “I hope I’ve encouraged other people to do the same.”

Lawless pleaded guilty Thursday in an Auckland, New Zealand, court to charges of unlawfully being on a ship. She was arrested in February with other Greenpeace activists who had boarded an oil-drilling ship and attempted to keep it from leaving port for an Arctic destination.

Actual directions for the 2012 EF! Round River Rendezvous

Well, they were a bit slow in coming. But here they are. Real directions to “The Ultimate RRR site”… We’ll see you there!

Thousands Protest At Ohio Statehouse Against Fracking

Thousands from around the state traveled to downtown Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday to send Gov. John Kasich a message about fracking. They want fracking to stop. “The long term impacts on our environment are going to be devastating.” Members of Don’t Frack Ohio marched from Arch Park to the Ohio Statehouse steps

Brazilian Farmers Win Big Against Monsanto

Crossposted from Reader Supported News

Five million Brazilian farmers have taken on US based biotech company Monsanto through a lawsuit demanding return of about 6.2 billion euros taken as royalties from them. The farmers are claiming that the powerful company has unfairly extracted these royalties from poor farmers because they were using seeds produced from crops grown from Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds, reports Merco Press.

In April this year, a judge in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, ruled in favor of the farmers and ordered Monsanto to return royalties paid since 2004 or a minimum of $2 billion.The ruling said that the business practices of seed multinational Monsanto violate the rules of the Brazilian Cultivars Act (No. 9.456/97).

Monsanto has appealed against the order and a federal court ruling on the case is now expected by 2014.