Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

Bengal Tiger More Endangered than Thought

Tracking a Tiger

Last year I was fortunate enough join a tiger tracking expedition in India. (well we took pictures of the experts who tracked the tigers) So when I just heard on NPR that the tiger population is half of what they estimated (less than 1500), I decided to share my experience.

First off, this isn’t a safari, teeming with wildlife. For two hours, we saw little more than dirt, and tiger tracks, and dirt. (backdrop of great scenery though)  We were just about to give up when we saw the above pic less than 15 feet away. So what did I do?

Just about the cheesiest thing you can do – take a pic with a Bengal tiger.

What was strange was that the Bengal didn't respond to the nearby watering hole with several tasty anteloped creatures. The tiger slipped back into the tall grass.  We waited and thought that was it.

Then someone spotted him in the forest.

The expert explained that tiger was avoiding giving off its scent because of the direction of the wind. Soon the tiger hid in the grass on the other side of the watering hole.

Enlarge: tiger bottom right

So the tiger is about to pounce, when we here warning calls behind us. Apparently, some deer were in the woods while the tiger was trying to avoid the wind. And poof, we saw like 50 deer scatter off from the watering hole.  Pretty amazing

Two main reasons why the Bengal tiger, who shrank from 100,000 to less than 1500 in just a century. Poaching (unforgivable) and deforestation (fixable).

Tigers need a lot of space, that’s their nature. Deforestation, that’s in our control. Start with the World Wildlife Fund - they’re great.

-Sanjiv

What They Mean by "Sustainable" Forests

A que hora es? Oh yeah 2 yrs of Spanish

Sustainable Harvests, our other tree-planting partner would like to thank you fellow GreenDimers for all your support this past year. They are doing some amazing things in Central American rain forests. Here are some their highlights in addition to the millions of trees they planted.

-Converted 6,000 acres to sustainable uses, ergo saving 30,000 acres from slash-and-burn destruction.

-Improved nutrition through more than 200 organic vegetable gardens.

-Increased farm income up to 800%.

-Built 165 wood-conserving stoves (saving 1,650 trees per year)

What caught my eye were the wood-burning stoves.  Apparently people were using open fire places in their homes breathing smoke fumes equals to 8 packs of cigs a day. The pic is a lorena stove provided by Sustainable Harvests for cooking and heating while the smoke is funneled out of a chimney. Very cool solution.

Thanks GreenDimers and Happy Holidays,

-Sanjiv

A Specific Case of How Tree-Planting Helps

Makes a Great WallPaper

Trees for the Future would like to thank you fellow GreenDimers for all your tree-planting efforts, and specifically for helping a village (I don’t know if I agree with “adopting a village.”)

Two thoughts:

(1)    Sometimes the notion of tree-planting is vague.   Here, we see something specific that you have done.  Basically, in 1991, a volcano in Botolan, Phillipines covered crops and homes in ash and left a toxic landscape.   By helping the community plant trees, organic material has returned to soil, yielding more crops and adding more timber.  All told, an additional 186,000 trees will be planted in the area.

(2)    The Phillipinos have been dealing with this problem since 1991?!

Thanks GreenDimers,

-Sanjiv                                                         

Senior Citizen Night in Botolan, who's with me?

American Forests 'ReLeaf' Efforts

GreenDimes All About Trees

Meditation music aside, this 3 minute clip gives a bird's-eye view of why tree-planting is so important.  Video from our friends and tree-planting partner, American Forests.

Your Junk Mail Offset,

-Sanjiv

The Firefox and the Hound

GreenDimes Weekly Wildlife Series

Firefox: Wrapped in his own fur
Nope.  That's not even the cutest pic of the firefox (aka red panda).   If I posted the cutest pic, forget about it.  You'd spend all your time downloading it as wallpapers, converting it into keyrings, and making logos out of it for your open source internet browser company.  You'd be doing all that while I need you to focus on the real issue. That this little guy is endangered.

By the Smithsonian National Zoological Park's estimates, there are fewer than 2500 of these Himalayan climbers left. (their habitat is generally in 7000-12000 ft altitudes)  And what are the primary causes.  Poachers (who are the animals?) and deforestation.

Wanna help?  Click on the WWF (not the Hulk Hogan WWF) and "adopt" one today.

-Sanjiv

Orang-U-Tan I Didn’t Say Orange?

Go ahead.  Click on the ultra cute pic of the orangutan.  I’ll wait……….. Now, take your widest black magic marker, and wipe it out!  I don’t care if you can’t stay within the lines, wipe it out.  Okay, okay, I’m being overdramatic…or am I?

According to treehugger, the top 25 most endangered primates could all fit inside a football stadium.   And overall, almost 30% of all primates are threatened with extinction. 

Now for those of you who wouldn’t believe a website called treehugger (I mean, they don’t even capitalize), what about the more reputable TreeSnuggler and TreeSpooner?  Actually treehugger.com is owned by the very reputable Discover Magazine.

And for those of you who think football stadiums are big, think of it this way.  Look at your finger nail.  If the top 25 endangered primates fit inside your finger nail, the number of species that used to exist would represent... a giant finger nail (maybe the worst analogy ever.)

What’s the cause?  Poaching.  Of course.  But the biggie, tropical deforestation.   Some Junk Mailers argue they like to use orangutan-habitated forests.  “They soften the wood.”  No I’m not serious.  About tropical deforestation though, I am serious.

To  do more, check out Conservation International Website.

I’ll miss you Proculobus badious waldroni.

Sanjiv

Meet Our Tree Partner: Sustainable Harvests

So I just read an argument from a junk mailer. He said that 1.7 million trees are replanted to offset junk mail.     Never mind that cutting down and replanting toward a wasteful practice is inefficient. It’s true, the word “million” is a big number, so let me use it:

Junk mailers cut down 100 million trees a year to create (and I do use “create” very loosely) 4.5 million tons of junk mail.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. I just had to get it off my chest. What I want to talk about is…

Our Final Tree Planting Tree Partner:

[compact fluorescent spotlights, please]

I give you, Sustainable Harvest International.

[oxygen-saving cheers]

These guys focus on Central American Rainforests, and if you like oxygen, you’ll love these guys. They have planted 2,000,000 trees and converted 6,000 acres for sustainable uses, which saves even more acres from the slash-and-burn.

So check out the trailer for their upcoming documentary. You can learn about the rainforest issue while be-bopping to the best Latin American music score I’ve heard.

Tree Planting Hulabaloo

Recently, I posted an article about one of our fabulous Tree Planting Partners called American Forests.  Not a minute after I clicked the publish button all of our other tree planting partners started chiming in.

“What about us?”  “Where’s our write up? “  “Our oaks provide way more shade in the morning than theirs provide in high noon.”  “Blind taste tests show our sap tastes way better than theirs.” “Our saplings go to better schools.” Then our first partner complained, “No, we have exclusive GreenDimes blogging rights.”  And on and on.

Alright, fine I’ll talk about all our partners.   While I am kidding about the entire scenario above, this is serious stuff folks.  According to our next featured partner, Trees for the Future, the earth loses about 100,000 acres of forest a day.

These guys have planted over 50 million trees in 58 countries (wow!)  They've worked with 12,000 villages. And we all know, more trees mean better soil, water, food & fuel which will help the over the 1 billion people who don’t meet basic nutrition standards.

They have specific programs that address problems of women and children around the world. A lot of them have to travel far and carry heavy loads to get what they need from trees.  A lot of them have to deal with pollution from slash-and-burn techniques.

You know what?  Why don’t I let them speak for themselves.  Here’s a 9-minute presentation from Trees for the Future (you can skip around a bit, I promise I won’t tell).

Your Junk Mail TrickorTreatser - Sanjiv

American Forests takes on American Wildfires

American Forests (americanforests.org), the nation’s oldest citizen’s non-profit conservancy, announced that they have a goal to match the $2.8 million settlement they received to offset the devastating effects from the California wildfires.  I checked out their site, and they run a really good operation, most notably through their ReLeaf program (5 stars for their play on words).   

For example, Ikea partnered with American forests to plant 33,000 trees a year to offset the CO2 emissions produced from IKEA workers and customers driving to their stores.  American Forests have also set up the Katrina ReLeaf Fund which will restore much of the Gulf Coast urban and rural tree canopy. 

Now, they’re working on the California Wildfire situation.  I, myself, lived less than a mile from the LA Griffith Park fires and witnessed the blank landscape after they tamped down the flames.   

Now I know what some of you are going to say, “Some wildfires are good, they clear the brush  & small trees to allow the larger trees to grow, and the larger trees develop a sort of flame retardant in their bark that prevent them from dying in another forest fire.  Wildfires are also a part of the natural forest cycle that promotes a greater diversity in the ecosystem. “    To which I’d say, “Wow, you know a lot of about trees.”

And then I’d say, “some” wildfires are good, but I take a nimby (not in my backyard) approach to wildfires – little selfish, I know.  Also, the Ice Age was part of nature, too, no?

So, go help our friends at American Forests.  These guys know what they’re doing.

Click to donate to American Forests’ California Wildfire ReLeaf Fund or call 800/545-8733.

Note: American Forests is one of GreenDimes tree planting partners (what, you didn’t think we planted them ourselves, did you?)

The Man Who Lost His Favorite Griffith Park Hike (they’ll bring it back),

-Sanjiv

Junk Mail / Tree Issue Solved!

Finally, the junk mailers have a solution.  Junk Mail Trees!  This is a mere 17-foot prototype of their proposed reforestation effort.    Now you can read your junk mail under the shade of junk mail.   One teenager complained that there’s no space to carve “Jimmy Was Here” in the bark…

No, no, this 17-foot tree was ‘sculpted’ by San Jose artist, Hector Dio Mendoza (pictured) to demonstrate the impact of this wasteful practice.  Even the leaves are shredded junk mail!

For the complete story:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/27/BAGNBGU9K01.DTL

Thanks Hector,

Sanjiv