Exotic orchids, stealthy jaguars, giant armadillos, colorful songbirds, noisy monkeys and reclusive snakes are but some of the creatures that inhabit tropical forests — along with millions of human beings who have relied on forest fruits, fibers, grains, medicines, cloths, resins and pigments for millennia.

The forest regularly saves our global food supply by offering new, disease-resistant crops. Although we have sampled only a tiny fraction of the potential foods they already have a profound influence on our diet. An astounding number of fruits (bananas, citrus), vegetables (peppers, okra), nuts (cashews, peanuts), drinks (coffee, tea, cola), oils (palm, coconut), flavorings (cocoa, vanilla, sugar, spices) and other foods (beans, grains, fish) originated in and around the rainforest.

If we are not careful though, our appetites for these products could destroy the source from which they came as unsustainable farming methods continue to be a major cause of rainforest destruction and pollution worldwide.

The evidence shows that human activities–like burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas–are most likely responsible for the warming observed to date. And, the trend is clear. If we don’t take steps to curb global warming pollution, the impacts will become increasingly dire.

Our country is home to a diverse array of wildlife ranging from the highest peaks, to the driest deserts, to freshwater and marine environments and to all the places in between. The abundant and diverse wildlife resources, which are so important to our culture and well-being, face a bleak future if we do not address global warming.

It emphasizes responsible and ethical tourism by active participation with the local communities and by disseminating information on the benefits to the community and the wildlife that surrounds them.

Camps International already has sustainable development and conservation projects running in Kenya and Tanzania and is about to expand with similar ventures in Borneo. The CIT charity will direct funds to support these projects and ensure every penny is carefully spent. It important to stress that, unlike large international charities, CIT will avoid local government or other non-governmental agencies directing with how the money is distributed.

In addition, local communications campaigns will stress the importance of a healthy home environment and will seek to increase the knowledge and adoption of proper household hygiene and sanitation. Likewise, the program will provide 400 school children with access to safe water and sanitation facilities in their school. This will coincide with the teaching of healthy hygiene habits by teachers and will be reinforced through promotional materials made available through this program.

In the area near Dubluq, Borena clans have wells with earthen ramps leading their cows down to flat areas with mud troughs so their animals can drink water passed up, bucket by bucket, by teams of men in a vertical chain, all singing to keep rhythm. These traditional eela wells, also called singing wells, are crucial in the dry season, and the clans have a schedule for which herds can access the wells on different days.

A well provides water, and song, for cows in Ethiopia’s dry season. Check out this video to see how Oxfam America helped one clan optimize their well to make it more efficient.

Minera Yanacocha is working aggressively to expand the mine. In 2004, the mine began exploring for gold on Cerro Quilish, a small mountain that comprises the top of the watershed supplying the city of Cajamarca and the rest of the valley. Dairy and potato farmers in the area and many others opposed to mining Quilish blocked the road to the mountain in 2004. There were weeks of violent confrontation between police and protesters. In the end, Minera Yanacocha stated publicly that it had underestimated the concerns of local people and asked the Ministry of Energy and Mines to revoke its permit to explore for minerals on Cerro Quilish.

In northern Peru, local governments, community leaders, and farmers say the proposed Rio Blanco Copper Mine would be devastating to local communities. In an area where drinking water is already scarce, pollution from the mine would be an environmental disaster for the entire region.

People living in poverty hundreds of miles from the nearest town find it nearly impossible to get hold of, or afford, the necessary spare parts. WaterAid research has shown that only 10% of Afridevs are mended within a week. This can have dire health consequences as most communities with a broken pump revert to collecting drinking water from risky sources such as unprotected traditional wells, swamps or rivers. Some take off the handpump and fetch water with a bucket and rope. This exposes them to the risk of potentially fatal water-related diseases such as typhoid and cholera.

To get around the spare parts problem, WaterAid Mozambique has been piloting the use of simple rope pumps in its projects since early 2003.
The most common problem in a rope pump is a broken rope, and even in the remotest areas rope is fairly to easy to find and cheap enough for communities to afford.

Doctors in India say its time for the Indian government to integrate palliative care into routine health care.

Amazon Watch supports Peruvian indigenous organizations challenging oil and gas development projects imposed on their communities and territories without their prior consent in violation of their internationally recognized rights to defend their lands, determine their own development and live according to their own cultures. We seek to promote the national indigenous demand for an end to extractive industry operations within the lands of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.

When one connects Chevron’s dots in Ecuador, what emerges is a coordinated series of frauds marked by misinformation designed to deceive courts, the public, shareholders, and the financial markets. The purpose of this scheme is to avoid paying the cost of a real cleanup, and it matters not that vulnerable rainforest peoples — among them thousands of children — have died or suffer grievously as a result.