11th Hour…Leonardo Di Caprio catches the Al Gore wave….
May 27, 2008
Of course i have watched this new documentary,no breaking news in this movie produced by Leonardo Di Caprio,but the quality of the panel is quite impressive…green ambassador even from Holywood is always important to raise awareness and articulate some solutions for North Americans
Hundreds of ducks die in Alberta oil sands is great PR for cleantech
May 14, 2008
Can you Imagine 141 000km2 of oil sands. Yep not 10 km2 but 141 000 km2…killing hundreds of ducks just because they need to land on water …and of course it s not a lake…Check this and open your eyes:
Unfortunately a video with dead ducks is more impactfull than a UN conference or a massive caterpillar truck in Alberta Oil sands which does not impact our consciousness…sad reality of the Alberta world…sucking water to extract oil (at a maximum cost) with massive GHG emissions and killing ecosystem…something should change in the business equation of the Alberta province…
And Robert Redford painted green the Sundance Festival
May 7, 2008
Don’t tell me that Toyota is not a green company..
Click on this great program driven by the SunDance festival..Great initiative with great content…Well done Robbie…and partners
i love the eco -mmunity interactive map..so cool
Lafite MV
May 6, 2008
I Can’t accept that 88% of the bears in Canada were killed for sport!
May 2, 2008
Blogrizzly can’t avoid to talk about this very important issue which is purely inacceptable…i love hicking in the rockies and i m a big fan of British Columbia ecosystem and there are less and less bears now in the Banff area.Therefore i SHOULD promote the great text i received today in my newsletter from David Suzuki which provides precise data:( please forward it to your green friends)
Bearing down on grizzlies
Years ago, I was surprised to learn that a grizzly bear is protected in the United States, but if it walks across the border into British Columbia, it can be killed for sport. So we did a program on them for The Nature of Things. I was amazed to see pictures from the 1800s of immense piles of skulls from grizzlies that were slaughtered to make room for early settlers on the prairies. Grizzlies were not just mountain animals; they flourished on bison all the way across Canada to Manitoba and south to Texas and California (where the only place you’ll find one now is on the state flag)! Grizzlies need space – tagged animals have been known to travel over hundreds of kilometres in a season. But the cumulative impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation from logging, mining, road building, urbanization, and other land-use pressures have forced them into isolated patches of territory.
The U.S. Endangered Species Act lists the grizzly as "threatened", meaning it is in danger of becoming extinct. Grizzly bears in Canada are ranked as "special concern" by Canada’s scientific committee on species at risk (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC) but remain legally unprotected. In the absence of legal protection, they continue to be hunted unsustainably in B.C. Government statistics show that 430 grizzlies were killed in the province in 2007, and close to 11,000 have been killed since 1975.
Last year’s kill in B.C. was a record, something we only found out when environmental groups, including the David Suzuki Foundation, were able to pry the information from the government. Most of the bears – about 88 per cent – were killed for sport. The rest were killed by poachers and animal-control officers.
The B.C. government argues that the grizzly hunt is sustainable, but the methods by which it estimates the numbers of bears are imprecise. In fact, many leading bear biologists say the B.C. government’s numbers – about 17,000 grizzlies – are high and that the number may be as low as 6,000. When scientists and researchers are unable to determine accurate population numbers, they often rely on the precautionary principle to ensure sustainable management. This is the idea that when potential risks exist, it’s better to be safe than sorry. In other words, if we suspect that grizzly populations are imperilled, we should stop killing them, even if we aren’t yet 100 per cent certain about the existing population size or rate of decline.
Some might ask why we should protect the grizzly. After all, it’s a large, dangerous animal that has been known to kill humans and livestock. But the dangers are exaggerated: grizzlies tend to be more afraid of than threatening to people, and their impact on livestock is minimal. More importantly, grizzlies are essential components of the ecosystems where they live. They help to disperse seeds and nutrients throughout the forest, and because they eat both plants and animals, they have a significant "top-down" influence on the food web. When salmon are spawning, grizzlies carry the fish into the forests to eat them, leaving much of the carcass behind. Those salmon remains feed many other birds, mammals, invertebrates, and microorganisms, and the nutrients in the rotting carcasses fertilize the surrounding trees. It’s a marvelous story of interconnections and interdependence.
The B.C. government has made some progress in grizzly conservation by setting aside some of its habitat, including the Great Bear Rainforest, as protected areas. But even there, trophy hunting is allowed, and many of the parks and protected areas are likely too small and isolated to maintain the grizzlies’ long-term survival. For this reason, the way we manage the rest of its territory is critical. As a start, the B.C. government must suspend the controversial grizzly hunt, as Alberta recently did, and must continue to protect large areas of grizzly habitat from resource development, roads, and other human pressures. British Columbia is unique in that grizzlies still inhabit much of the province, even though they have been eliminated from almost all of their historical territory across the planet. That means we have a global responsibility to protect this iconic carnivore.
David Suzuki with Faisal Moola
Take David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.
Solution:build more wildlife crossing such as bridges and tunnel for grizzlies
therefore they can flee more easily from Canadian hunters to USA!!!