Focusing On The Conservation of Ecosystems, Habitats & Wildlife

Make Earth Day Everyday!

10 Things You Can Do For The Planet On Earth Day

  1. Make Natural Cleaners- Many home cleaning products contain toxic chemicals that contribute to indoor pollution and can harm fish and other wildlife when they go down the drain and into local waterways. Common natural ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, salt, and lemon juice can be used instead to keep your home clean.
  1. Fix Leaking Faucets- If your home has one leaking toilet, you could be wasting more than 200 gallons of fresh water every day. Add another 10 gallons a day for every leaking faucet.
  1. Eat Only Sustainable Seafood-Consult a list of ocean-friendly seafood before your next trip to the store or your favorite restaurant. Over-consumption of some fish and other ocean wildlife threatens to wipe out entire species.
  1. Try A Light Bulb Savings Calculator- See how your energy use from home lighting compares to others and ways that you can reduce your overall energy use.
  1. Make Your Office More Green“Reduce, reuse, recycle” applies at work too. See what you can do.
  1. Recycle Unused Items Around Your House- Check out a list of items that can be recycled rather than tossed into your local landfill.
  1. Improve Your Energy Efficiency with Upgraded Appliances-Learn how much energy you might save by replacing an old appliance with a new more energy-efficient model.
  1. Go Green When You Travel- With a bit of extra planning, you can make your vacation fun and earth friendly.
  1. Use Sustainable Food Containers – Decrease waste in your local landfill by storing food in eco-friendly containers. Learn about the many options available to you.
  2. Teach Children to Be Good Stewards of the Earth- Use fun activities and information for children to teach the kids in your life to respect and care for our planet.

International Day Of Forest

International Day of Forests (AKA World Forestry Day) is on March 21 and celebrates all types of forests and trees outside forests for the benefit of current and future generations.

 

Ways To Help Protect & Preserve Forests

 Adopt An Acre

 

Sign this petition to help Save Wildlife and their Habitats from Deforestation 

Ask for and purchase products with the FSC label

If you are passionate about forests, consider becoming a member of FSC

 

Spread The Word!

Speak out against habitat destruction & illegal logging on social media.

Tweet that protecting valuable forests is vital to human well-being.

Watch “Nature Is Speaking” by Conservation International  – Kevin Spacey is The Rainforest 

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International Day of Forests Video Below

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Happy Earth Day

Give EARTH A Hand Today!  

What Do You Want For Our Earth?

I Want Clean Air….

I Want Food Without Destruction….

I Want Eater Without Pollution….

I Want Our Rainforest Intact….

I Want To Keep Our Oceans Alive….

And Our Polar Seas Pristine….

I Want An Energy Revolution….

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What Do You Want For Our Earth?

Tell Your U.S. Representative To Vote NO On These 3 Bills

This week, the House of Representative is taking up 3 bills that could be very bad for endangered and threatened wildlife.

Please take action & ask your Representative to vote “NO!” on these 3 bills:

HR 3590 – Would open national wildlife refuges to damaging uses & construction projects without public input.

HR 3964 – Uses California’s drought to attack the Endangered Species Act & overturn a plan to restore the San Joaquin River

HR 2954 – This package of land bills would put harmful grazing before protecting wildlife on public lands, open miles of beachfront to off-road vehicles, and much more.

TAKE ACTION HERE

Monarch In My Backyard

Today was my first Monarch Butterfly sighting in my backyard!  As I ran in to grab my camera, I was lucky enough to capture a still photo of this beauty.

Monarch butterflies remind me of when I was a child….growing up in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois where I always saw these butterflies in our yard!

The appearance of Butterflies always signals the presence of new nectar within our life.  May we all enjoy this new sweetness in life.

World Orangutan Day

Happy World Orangutan Day! Both ORANGUTAN species are threatened: The IUCN lists the Sumatran species as Critically Endangered and the species of Borneo as Endangered. The main reasons for this lie in the rapid destruction and degradation of the tropical rain forest, particularly lowland forest, in Borneo and Sumatra.

To learn more, click here.

Did you know that this great ape shares 96.4% of our genes?

Download #orangutan wallpaper for your computer: http://wwf.to/12iYgUE

World Environment Day 2013

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The World Environment Day celebration began in 1972 and has grown to become one of the main vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action.

It takes only a few simple steps to easily green your daily routine and make good eco behavior into a habit!  Check out these A-Z Tips (found on UNEP.org‘s website).

Act now. Make the decision to become more aware of issues related to food waste.

Adopt as many eco-friendly lifestyle choices as you can and make them habits for WED! 

Add it up. Our impact is exponential when the global chorus sings together.

Buy locally! Flying food across continents increases global transportation emissions. 

Bring a cloth bag to do all your grocery shopping.  A reusable bag will last for years and only needs to be used 5 times to have a lower environmental impact than a plastic bag.

Bring a mug with you whenever you go for take-out beverages, so you avoid using paper cups. 

Consume locally. You will help reduce the demand for cutting down forests in foreign countries to meet export demands.

Choose naturally grown foods. They have less of an environmental impact and are much healthier.

Compost your organic food waste.

Don’t buy more food than you really need. 

Discover an alternative to using traditional wrapping paper for holidays and birthday gifts.

Engage in an environmental activity, like school or neighborhood beautification or tree planting. 

Eat organic and locally grown foods and help reduce the clearing of forests for agricultural land. 

Educate your friends on how individual actions can have an exponential impact and motivate action for WED.

Form a group of peers or colleagues to oversee the food waste at your school, neighborhood or workplace. 

Form a tree-planting group with family and friends and commit to planting and maintaining these trees together.

Green your office: print double-sided, turn off monitors, start an office recycling program.

Grow an organic garden and your own delicious food.

Give seedlings as birthday gifts. 

Go electronic for bills and payments: at home, in the office, at the bank etc.

Host a World Environment Day celebration. 

Have a vegan (no animal products) dinner party!

Identify the nature that surrounds you — take note of the beautiful plants and animals that you may not always appreciate. Learn about the amazing ecosystem services they provide.

Improve the insulation of your home – it will really help your energy consumption…and your monthly bills!

Join a local environmental or conservation group. You can team up with those around you and make a real difference for your community.

Jog outside and save the energy you would have used on the treadmill!

Kick the habit! Don’t print unless it’s absolutely necessary. And when you do print – always print double-sided! 

Keep your cup! When traveling on airplanes, ask to reuse your plastic cup.

Learn more about the environment impact of food production. Did you know that it takes 1,000 litres of water to produce 1 litre of milk?

More food in your pantry increases the risk of food going bad before you consume.

Mobilize your networks! Message your friends about WED — facebook, twitter, orkut, SMS, text, phone, email — it doesn’t matter how, just get the word out!

Notify your friends on how their action against food waste could have a huge impact. Even if just one-fourth of the food currently lost or wasted globally could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world.

Optimize the use of your washing machine – use the cold-wash option and significantly save energy and reduce your daily carbon emissions.

Offset your travel whenever possible – most airlines provide an option to offset your travel when you book your tickets.

Opt for public transport whenever possible.

Order small food portions first. Better to add on than waste.

Plan in advance. Know what you will need before you go grocery shopping so not to end up buying more food than what will be consumed in your household.

Pile up! Lay the grounds for a compost pile and start sorting your garbage.

Quantify how much money you could save each cold winter if you lowered the temperature inside your home by 2 degrees Celsius. It could reduce your energy consumption by 14 percent!!!

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. 

Register a WED activity at www.unep.org/wed!

Sacrifice something small each month – eat locally grown vegetables instead of imported vegetables; do without steak as cattle ranching is high impact!; carpool with co-workers; take your bike to work etc.

Save! Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes).

Support and motivate companies that use certified materials and operate in ways that are environmentally responsible.

Switch your light bulbs to energy-efficient LED’s. You will see substantial savings on energy bills!

Tell your friends about the enormous amounts of food waste we are creating. A third of global food production is either wasted or lost.

Think before you buy food. What is the environmental impact of your choice?

Think outside of the bottle! Bottled water costs 1900 times more than tap water

Tweet about #WED and spread food waste tips to the world!

Understand your options. Learn about the small ways you, as an individual, can make a positive impact on the environment.

Use rainwater for your indoor plants – they love it, and you’ll save water at the same time.

Visit the WED website  regularly and see how you can get involved!

Waste not food! 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger. 

X-plore the World Environment Day website. Find out more about food waste.

You can make a difference – individual actions, when multiplied, can make an exponential difference to the planet! 

Zip around town on your bike, on public transport, or walk to a restaurant near you. It’s cheaper! 

Conservation Efforts Stops The Sale Of Endangered Whale Dog Treats

Following a conservation campaign from The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and the Iruka & Kujira [Dolphin & Whale] Action Network (IKAN), Michinoku Farm, a Tokyo-based company, stopped selling their “low calorie, low fat, high protein” snack made from North Atlantic fin whales.

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NOTE: Icelandic fin whale has been sold in Japan for human consumption since 2008, but its use in pet food suggests that new markets are being explored. Iceland is currently preparing to hunt more than 180 fin whales in 2013 for this export market.

For more info, click here.

International Day for Biological Diversity – May 22, 2013

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The United Nations has proclaimed May 22 The International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, they believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, they work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction.  Through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.

Jungle Jenny and The Center For Biological Diversity wants those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.