Start-up takes on second-largest energy company to save German forest

On an unusually warm October night in western Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state, people are talking around campfires as the stars come out. A stage is being dismantled, where musicians had performed for a demonstration of a reported 50,000 people earlier during the day. These holdouts are staying for the night, sleeping in tents and hammocks strung between the trees of the 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest.

Nearby, Tagebau Hambach, one of the world’s deepest open mines, looms in the dark, with machines tirelessly biting into its terraces to extract lignite from the earth.

While just 100-or-so hectares, the swathe of forest has become a symbolic battleground ...

Source: news.globallandscapesforum.org/30342/start-up-takes-on-second-largest-energy-company-to-save-germ...

#Germany #forests #energy #mining ... See MoreSee Less

20 hours ago  ·  

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In a Colombian sanctuary, once-trafficked birds fly again

Colombia is home to the most important aviary in South America, a sanctuary containing almost 2,000 birds.

The privately run National Aviary of Colombia serves as a refuge in which birds representing 165 different species have a second chance at life after escaping the hands of illegal wildlife traffickers.

So far in 2018, Colombian authorities have rescued nearly 4,000 birds — victims of a trafficking industry that has become the third-largest illicit economy in the country.

Source: news.mongabay.com/2018/10/in-a-colombian-sanctuary-once-trafficked-birds-fly-again/

#Colombia #birds #illegalwildlifetrade ... See MoreSee Less

1 day ago  ·  

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Vietnam seizes 13 rhino horns shipped from South Africa

Authorities in Vietnam seized 13 rhinoceros horns and related items from South Africa on Friday, just two weeks after the seizure of a tonne of illegal wild life products, state media said.

Vietnam is a major consumer of rhino horn, which is believed to have medical powers, and a transit point for elephant ivory to consumers mostly in China and the United States, destined to be made into jewellery and home decorations.

The communist country bans trade in rhino horn, elephant ivory and pangolins, but weak law enforcement has allowed a black market to flourish

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/vietnam-seizes-13-rhino-horns-shipped-from-south-africa-10821666

#Vietnam #Africa #SouthAfrica #rhinos #illegalwildlifetrade ... See MoreSee Less

2 days ago  ·  

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