Eco Announcements

by Pina Wu, ECOCLUB.com Correspondent

About the Author Pina Wu is an Environmental Services Professional based in Taipei, Taiwan. Her specialities include Urban Planning, Community Engagement and International Development. She has a Master in Public Policy and Urban Planning from Harvard University and an M.S. in Building & Planning from National Taiwan University. She currently teaches Environmental Education and English for Tour Guiding in Wenshan and Tainan Community Colleges.

On January 13th, 2016, Taijiang National Park (Map) unveiled its newly completed administration office and tourist centre in Tainan, southern Taiwan. Three weeks later it withstood an 6.4 earthquake which killed 117 people and caused widespread damage particularly in Tainan. The building, in the heart of Sicao wetland, a Ramsar site, is an example of modern stilt architecture, built over the waters of a former fish farm. When visiting Taijiang, one appreciates a serene scenery: the tidal shore is dotted with mangrove forests, birds fly over the water in search of the day’s catch, local fishermen check their nets in the pond and women pick out oysters from their shells under the trees in the fishing villages. Few visitors can imagine or comprehend that twenty years ago, there were plans to develop an industrial zone with new townships, an oil refinery, a harbour and an airport in this very location. Those plans were only dealt a final blow in 2009, when Taijiang National Park was formally launched to protect the highly-endangered black-faced spoonbill. It has a total area of 39,310 hectares, of which 34,405 ha is covered by water. Taijiang NP was the eighth national park in Taiwan (out of a current total of 9) and the first that set the wetland ecosystems as the main conservation subject.

By Desmond Brown

CHARLESTOWN, St. Kitts and Nevis, Jan 25 (IPS) - Legislators on the tiny volcanic island of Nevis in the northern region of the Lesser Antilles say they are on a path to going completely green and have now set a date when they will replace diesel-fired electrical generation with 100 per cent renewable energy.

The island, with a population of 12,000 currently imports 4.2 million gallons of diesel fuel annually, at a cost of 12 million dollars, a bill it hopes to cut down significantly. Nevis consumes a maximum of 10 mw of energy annually.

Deputy Premier and Minister of Tourism of Nevis, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of St. Kitts and Nevis Mark Brantley said geothermal energy is something that sets Nevis apart.

"About 10 years ago we discovered that we have geothermal energy here. It has taken a while but we are not at a stage where all the exploration work has been done and we have been assured that geothermal goes live in December of 2017," Brantley told IPS.

"What that means is that when that plant switches on in December of 2017, fully 100 per cent of Nevis' electricity will be supplied by renewables. Nowhere else in the world can boast that and so it will make us the greenest place on planet earth. That's the new tagline – the greenest place on planet earth."

By Serena Lucrezi, North-West University

Scuba diving is an important tourism market, generating a billion-dollar industry worldwide. African countries are highly recommended for divers; 20% of the best dives in the world are located on the continent.

Some of the most popular destinations include:

• the warm tropical waters of the Red Sea, which is home to Thistlegorm, and Shark and Yolanda Reef in Sharm El Sheikh;

• the high latitude reefs of southern Mozambique; and

• the cold waters of South Africa that host great white sharks, old mines, lakes, and marine parks.

Scuba diving has grown in popularity over the past two decades. This is evident from the rapid growth in the number of certifications issued worldwide. The number has grown to 23 million at a pace of about one million every year.

But the industry is not without its fair share of challenges. Some of these, such as environmental degradation and the effects of climate change, are threatening the industry.

By Jose Adan Silva

MANAGUA, Nov 03 (IPS) - The international scientific community's fears about the damage that will be caused by Nicaragua's future interoceanic canal have been reinforced by the environmental impact assessment, which warns of serious environmental threats posed by the megaproject.

The report "Canal de Nicaragua: Executive Summary of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment" was carried out by the British consulting firm Environmental Resources Management (ERM) and commissioned by the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development (HKDN Group), the Chinese company that won the bid to build the canal.

The 113-page executive summary sums up the study, whose unabridged version has not been made publicly available by the government, ERM or HKND.

In the study, ERM says the megaproject could be of great benefit to the country as long as best international practices on the environmental, economic and social fronts are incorporated at the design, construction and operational stages, for which it makes a number of recommendations.

But it spells out specific risks and threats to the environment in this impoverished Central American country of 6.1 million people with a territory of 129,429 square kilometers.

By Fabiana Frayssinet

LUJÁN DE CUYO, Argentina, Oct 20 (IPS) - The region of Cuyo in west-central Argentina is famous for its vineyards. But it is one of the areas in the country hit hardest by the effects of climate change, such as desertification and the melting of mountain top snow. And local winegrowers have come up with their own way to fight global warming.

In the cup, malbec, Argentina's flagship red wine, still has the same intense flavour and colour.

But behind the production process is a new environmental reconversion, which began four years ago in the arid province of Mendoza, where vineyards bloom in the midst of oases created by human hands.

Only 4.8 percent of the desert province of Mendoza is green; 3.5 percent is dedicated to agricultural production, which uses 90 percent of the water consumed, and the rest is urban areas.

"We are trying to maintain the same production levels, using less water and less energy, reducing waste, reusing waste products, and creating less pollution," the provincial coordinator of the Federal Programme for Cleaner Production, Germán Micic, told Tierramérica.

By Marianela Jarroud

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile, Sep 22 (IPS) - Chile's Altiplano or high plateau region, pounded by the sun of the Atacama desert, the driest place in the world, is home to dozens of indigenous communities struggling for subsistence by means of sustainable tourism initiatives that are not always that far removed from out-of-control capitalism.

"Here, money talks," Víctor Arque, a tourist guide in San Pedro de Atacama, told Tierramérica. "If you don't have money, no one's interested in you."

San Pedro de Atacama, the capital of tourism, archaeology and astronomy in northern Chile, is home to 4,800 people, 61 percent of whom belong to the Atacameño indigenous group, who refer to themselves as Lickantay in their Kunza tongue.

But during tourist season, hundreds of thousands of visitors come through the town, especially people from other countries drawn by the mysteries of the desert, its volcanoes and geysers.

The desert also offers some of the clearest night skies on the planet, and in the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array or ALMA Observatory, scientists are working to decipher enigmas of the night sky.

By José Adán Silva

ALTAGRACIA, Nicaragua, Sep 07 (IPS) - A group of poor women from Ometepe, a beautiful tropical island in the centre of Lake Nicaragua, decided to dedicate themselves to recycling garbage as part of an initiative that did not bring the hoped-for economic results but inspired the entire community to keep this biosphere reserve clean.

It all began in 2007. María del Rosario Gutiérrez remembers her initial interest was piqued when she saw people who scavenged for waste in Managua's garbage dumps fighting over the contents of bags full of plastic bottles, glass and metal.

September 7, 2015 (Bangalore, INDIA) - Today Wild Asia proudly revealed the winners of the ninth Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Awards. For the first time, the announcement and celebration was held at PATA Travel Mart, this year at Bangalore, India, and generously sponsored by World Nomads Travel Insurance. The Wild Asia Responsible Tourism Awards are an opportunity for shining stars in sustainability to gain international recognition for their efforts to create better places to live and better places to visit. The Winners represent leadership in commitment to benefiting their local communities and natural environment, whilst providing authentic and meaningful travel experiences for visitors from around the world. The Awards are based in the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, and all recipients go through an in-depth review and assessed by a panel of international travel industry experts.

About the Author Pina Wu is an Environmental Services Professional based in Taipei, Taiwan. Her specialties include Urban Planning, Community Engagement and International Development. She has a Master in Public Policy and Urban Planning from Harvard University and an M.S. in Building & Planning from National Taiwan University. She currently teaches Environmental Education and English for Tour Guiding in Wenshan and Tainan Community Colleges.

By Pina Wu, ECOCLUB.com Correspondent

The village of Smangus (pop. 178), is located in the remote mountains of central Taiwan (open Map), in the area inhabited by the indigenous Atayal people. Since 2004, in order to develop its tourism sustainably, the villagers formed a cooperative, officially the “Smangus Tribal Labor Co-op”, sharing the land, costs and profits. Today, 55,000 tourists visit this small village of 34 households each year, generating an annual revenue of 0.7 million USD¹. The co-op has increased worker salaries four times in the past ten years and currently employs 47 villagers full-time. It offers comprehensive welfare programs and it is also funding the construction of an elementary school. Tourism not only sustains the village economically, but also helps the local community rediscover and reinvent their traditional socioeconomic system.

By Patrick Mills, ECOCLUB.com Correspondent

The Orang Asli, or “original people”, constitute less than 1% of Malaysia’s population (Aljazeera, 2015). Many of these indigenous groups were once nomadic hunter-gatherers with strong links and dependency on their forest surroundings. In the early 1990s, a Malaysian government initiative to introduce indigenous communities to Malay culture brought many of these tribes into permanent villages. It was allegedly an effort to have them join ‘mainstream’ Malay culture and convert to Islam (Tacey, 2013). Over time many Orang Asli have lost touch with their indigenous nature, their culture becoming diluted by sedentary employment such as farming and wage labour and a reliance on non-forest goods such as shop-bought foods. The rapid deforestation of Malayan rainforests is further threatening their way of life as logging and farming creates an ever growing gap between them and the forest.