Saving Children From Loggers
Maddlyn Maelofa (far right) and young girls in Huahai village in Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.By Catherine WilsonAUKI, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands, Dec 1 2013 (IPS) Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced no beneficial development.
And when the social costs for those who live in the vicinity of logging camps includes gre...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - December 1, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Catherine Wilson Tags: Active Citizens Asia-Pacific Civil Society Crime & Justice Development & Aid Economy & Trade Editors' Choice Environment Featured Gender Gender Identity Gender Violence Headlines Human Rights Indigenous Rights Labour Natura Source Type: news
Saving Children From Loggers
Maddlyn Maelofa (far right) and young girls in Huahai village in Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.AUKI, Malaita Province, Solomon Islands, Dec 1 2013 (IPS) Logging is the largest industry in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago located northwest of Fiji, where 80 percent of the islands are covered in tropical rainforest. But, although timber accounts for 60 percent of this South Pacific nation’s export earnings, most local communities have experienced no beneficial development.
And when the social costs for those who live in the vicinity of logging camps includes greater inequality, in...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - December 1, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Catherine Wilson Tags: Active Citizens Asia-Pacific Civil Society Crime & Justice Development & Aid Economy & Trade Editors' Choice Environment Featured Gender Gender Identity Gender Violence Headlines Human Rights Indigenous Rights Labour Natura Source Type: news
Sharks: feared or revered – but very rarely understood
Human activity has driven many species of shark into decline. Perhaps it is time for us to rethink our relationship with these beautiful creaturesIn pictures: Thomas Peschak's remarkable photographs of sharksI saw my first shark when I was 16 years old, drifting in the deep off the southernmost tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. A huge school of barracuda circled like an overcrowded carousel along the wall of Shark Reef. Weaving in and out of the mass was a trio of blacktip sharks. I tried to get close, but the current held me at a distance. In my photographs of this first encounter, the sharks were mere specks, but the seed ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - October 5, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Thomas Peschak Tags: Marine life Food Fishing Features Animals The Observer Conservation Environment Science Wildlife Source Type: news
New to nature no 110: Sandalolitha boucheti
A species of mushroom coral discovered in Vanuatu demonstrates the extreme marine biodiversity of the Pacific's 'coral triangle'The family Fungiidae are commonly known as mushroom corals because of a strong resemblance to the underside of the cap of a gilled mushroom. They are distributed in tropical seas of the Indo-Pacific and may be found among a diversity of reefs: shallow flats, deep reefs and reefs both offshore and situated near the mouths of rivers. Most mushroom corals detach in the adult stage and become solitary and free living, although some remain connected to their substrate. Dense swarms of adults are observ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - July 27, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Quentin Wheeler Tags: World news Features Animals The Observer Zoology Environment Science Wildlife Source Type: news
A bit of good luck: A new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago
(Pensoft Publishers) Scientists discovered a new species of burying beetle from the Solomon Islands Archipelago. Nicrophorus efferens was discovered when one of the authors, Tonya Mousseau, decided to look through the local museum collections during a holiday in Hawaii. The lucky find is a type of burying beetle, a group of beetles famous among naturalists for their peculiar reproductive habits. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. (Source: EurekAlert! - Biology)
Source: EurekAlert! - Biology - June 21, 2013 Category: Biology Source Type: news
Water Shortage Hits Pacific Women
The Solomon Islands, a developing island nation in the south-west Pacific Islands, has one of the highest urbanisation rates in the region, and the basic service infrastructure is struggling to cater for the influx of people from the provinces to the capital, Honiara. Thirty-five percent of the city’s population, who live in informal settlements, are facing the health consequences of a dire shortage of clean water and sanitation.
Located on the main island of Guadalcanal, Honiara is a coastal city and port of 64,600 people growing at 2.7 percent a year. Thirty informal settlements in the capital are home to more than 22,...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - April 8, 2013 Category: Global & Universal Authors: Catherine Wilson Tags: Active Citizens Aid Asia-Pacific Civil Society Development & Aid Economy & Trade Environment Featured Gender Gender Identity Gender Violence Headlines Health Population Regional Categories TerraViva Europe Water & Sanitatio Source Type: news
