Energy-saving targets met

CNC report from Beijing
Added On June 12, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS


World Environment Day
Environment protection and improvement
Chinese town going green

The Chinese government announced on Friday that all provincial-level governments across the country have accomplished their energy-saving targets in the past five years.

According to a government statement, China's energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) had dropped by 19.1 percent during the period between 2006 and 2010.

While its economy grew at a staggering 11.2 percent on average, the country's energy consumption rose just 6.6 percent annually over the past five years,

Among all the provincial-level regions, the national capital of Beijing took the lead in the energy saving.

The city had to consume 58,200 metric tons of coal equivalent for an output of each 1 billion yuan (154 million U.S. dollars) in 2010, compared with 79,200 metric tons at the end of 2005.

China has vowed to make its economy greener and reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP by 16 percent and lower carbon dioxide emission per unit of GDP by 17 percent during the period between 2011 and 2015. The pledge is parts of the country's efforts to combat climate change.

Environment protection and improvement

Environment protection and improvement

CNC report from Guatemala, Morocco
Added On June 6, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

India to host Environment Day

It's World Environment Day!


In 1973, the first WED was observed to raise people's awareness of the environment. Since then, various events have been held to call for environment protection.
The Prayer of Rain in Guatemala is an ancient ceremony. But it has taken on new meanings in modern world.
Lifestyles takes you there.

The Prayer of Rain
40 days after the Holy Week every year, Mayan indigenes in Guatemala perform an ancestral ceremony around the Chicabal Lagoon to ask for rain .

The Lagoon, located in the center of Chicabal Volcano, is one of the main natural heritages in Guatemala as well as a sacred place for the Maya people.

Hundreds of people gather to the site to be part of the Prayer ceremony. The ceremony is now no longer just an ancient ritual. It shows more of people's concern for environment protection.

In fact, Guatemala is a country with many natural and archeological attractions of great value. Among them is Takalik Abaj. Let's take a tour there with Lifestyles.

Takalik Abaj lies in the the north of the municipality of El Asintal, southwest of Guatemala. It is one of the most important archeological sites aound the world.

The site had its golden age in the preclassical and classical periods, when the economy and the culture flourished in the area.

It used to be one of the most important commercial centers between 9 century BC and 10 century AD, trading frequently with Kaminaljuyi and Chocola.

Today, after restoration work, more than 80 stone buildings, 200 murals and 12 plazas are opened to the visitors. The architectures and arts there show evident Mayan characteristics with an implication of Olmec style it acquired in early ages.

Groups of archaeologists are working around the area, trying to find more about this ancient site.

Apart from these natural and cultural heritages, people's living environment is also of great concern for many countries. Morocco is one that is operating a program to get rid of the shanty towns in its cities.
Lifestyles has the details.

Morocco started in 2004 a project called "Cities without Shanty Towns". Its goal is to get rid of shanty towns around the country and improve people's living conditions.

The Program is to be carried out in up to 85 cities next year and bring benefits to thousands of households.

It costs a total of 4.85 billion dirhams with a plan to construct 55,000 lodgings and corresponding equipment.The government is coworking with big companies to achieve the goal.

The Program is projected to complete by June 2012.

Protecting our forests from destruction is a major priority of the UN Environment Programme.

World Environment Day

CNC report from United Nations
Added On June 8, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Environment protection and improvement
India to host Environment Day
Iker Casillas named ambassador

Protecting our forests from destruction is a major priority of the UN Environment Programme.

That is why, to help mark World Environment Day over the weekend, the UNEP turned to actor, conservationist and UN Goodwill Ambassador Edward Norton --- who has made forest preservation a key priority in his work around the world.

Edward Norton may be well-known for his work in movies, but it is his role as a UN Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity that he is now most proud of.

Since Norton assumed his work with the UN, he has visited a variety of conservation and rural renewable energy projects around the world, including in central Kenya.

SOUNDBITE (English) Edward Norton, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity:
“It’s very important to find ways to articulate to people why biodiversity matters, should matter to them; and in a lot of ways that’s about telling good stories, it’s about being able to go into the world, see programs, see examples of the good and the bad, see examples of negative impacts, loss of biodiversity, see examples of the positive impacts of restoration and preservation of biodiversity, and come back and find a way to communicate that to people in a broad base way.”

While visiting a bio-gas project in Kenya earlier this year, intended to provide a farming community with an alternative to the use of firewood, Norton witnessed how small dairy farmers around the slopes of Mount Kenya are using waste from their cows to produce enough methane to power their houses and farms.

SOUNDBITE (English) Edward Norton, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity:
“One of the ones that really stuck out to me was this biogas project for small dairy farmers around the slopes of Mount Kenya. They are reducing and even eliminating their use of fuel wood from forests by taking these digestors, these drums, and putting the waste from their dairy cows into them and producing so much methane that they power their whole houses, their stoves, their farms and everything. And the guy, there was this guy, you know, the project manager of that, and he was like, I mean, you know, Steven Spielberg was never more passionate and creative than this guy was.”

Since economic development in Kenya is largely underpinned by the quality and integrity of the country’s rich natural resource base, the UNEP reports that environmental change in the form of degradation is threatening its natural resources and affecting Kenyan livelihoods.

SOUNDBITE (English) Edward Norton, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity:
“We are losing this enormous treasury of species that has lots of very specific value to us. Not just holistic or spiritual but actual economic value. It is a genetic database that we are losing. There is an incredible report that’s come out of the UN, it’s called the TEA Report, the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity that really clearly demonstrates that forest ecosystems represent an enormous uncalculated GDP, especially for poor people around the world so that when you clear a forest to create the quote unquote economic gain of a certain kind of industry, you actually wipe out an enormous economic GDP that poor people were extracting in a sustainable way from a forest.”

Norton has been active in garnering support for conservation efforts, serving as a board member and head of the Kenya-based Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust’s New York office.

He also took part in the launch of an innovative social networking platform called Crowdrise to boost participation in charitable work.

Norton became involved in the Trust over a decade ago after visiting its eco-lodge in Kenya.

In 2009, he ran the New York City marathon with a team of Maasai warriors raising $1.2 million for the Trust.

SOUNDBITE (English) Edward Norton, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity:
“Biodiversity is not just this abstract concept in halls of science, it’s the living underpinning of our lives and we are all intimately and directly connected to the services and the resources that biodiversity supplies us in our lives. We are reliant on the web of biodiversity for our lives and I think we have to tell that story better to people.”

According to Norton, figuring out how people in developing countries can thrive and grow without destroying some of the world's most important natural resources is going to be one of the great challenges of the 21st Century

IWMI : Wetlands

More than 3 billion people (around half the world’s population) obtain their basic water needs from inland freshwater wetlands.

IWMI : Wetlands

IWMI : Topics - Wastewater

IWMI : Topics - Wastewater

IWMI : World Environment Day

How has your scientific research in agriculture contributed to creating a positive impact on the environment?

IWMI : World Environment Day



World environment day
CNC report from New York

Capricorn Society Limited CEO Trent Bartlett Announces 2012 Year of the ...

Capricorn CEO and Chair of the IYC Secretariat for Australia, Trent Bartlett announces 2012 as the International Year of Co-Operatives.