What a week it is when the powers-that-be in the grand ol’ USA decide to take a leap towards greener energy!
We’ve become far too familiar with weak environmental policy efforts that involve pacing around, arguing over the validity of Climate Change, while fossil fuels continue to vaporize into greenhouse gases.
So this week’s revelation of President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan was a monumental moment that will soon change our entire energy system… for real!
Held on June 8, World Oceans Day is an annual day of celebrating our oceans and taking actions to protect them. Originally proposed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 by Canada, the day was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2008. Now, thousands of conservation organizations around the world observe the day with events such as beach cleanups, educational programs, art contests and sustainable seafood festivals.
To honor this year’s theme of “Healthy Ocean, Healthy Planet,” the Florida Keys-based Coral Restoration Foundation is hosting its first ever Plantapalooza. The event will find eight vessels taking around 70 volunteers to plant 1,000 healthy stag horn corals in seven different reef sites. In the process of promoting the World Oceans Day message of international ocean awareness, they’ll also be helping to save one of the world’s most threatened coral reef systems.
We recently spoke with the CRF’s Education Outreach Coordinator Ashley Hill to learn more about the importance of corals to the marine ecosystem, the importance of healthy oceans to our planet, and what divers, boaters and other travelers can do to make a difference.
Today, March 3, is the second annual World Wildlife Day– a day created by the 68th session of United Nations General Assembly in 2013 to honor its adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The day was designed to remind us to celebrate the world’s remarkably diverse forms of flora and fauna, to rejoice in our privilege to interact with nature and wildlife, and to raise awareness of the problems that wildlife is currently facing and the economic, environmental and sociopolitical impact those problems have on the people who populate this planet.
This year, in a special session of the General Assembly, the UN insists that “It’s Time to Get Serious About Wildlife Crime” and will examine the challenges and opportunities for stepping up our international efforts to combat wildlife crime at a global scale.
For anyone worried about what GMOs are doing to our agricultural system and how Monsanto is patenting plants across the planet, there’s another dangerous devil on the horizon. Plantation palm oil has been around for years, but its evils largely go unnoticed by the average consumer.
If you’ve not gotten the dirty details on palm oil yet, then buckle up for a bumpy ride we all need to take. Because the palm oil industry is not only endangering Palawan Philippines (named the Best Island in the World in 2014 by Conde Nast Traveler readers), but the health of our entire planet.
The New Year brings with it an annual rite of passage as reliable as the swallows returning to Capistrano or the Great Migration of Kenya and Tanzania. Every travel magazine under the sun feels it their moral obligation to predict the top travel destinations for the coming year, while every travel blogger (including us) waxes rhapsodic about the wanderlust adventures that dance like so many sugarplums in their heads.
This year, instead of sharing our own 2015 travel wish list (which, if we’re being honest, remains much the same as it has in years past), we decided to consult a team of five experts on ecotourism to discover what they consider 2015’s top travel destinations. Their responses weren’t based on dreams, but on analytical data regarding the responsible, sustainable tourism opportunities each place has to offer.
Our panel consisted of five of the field’s most respected thought leaders:
• Jeff Greenwald– Founder of Ethical Traveler
• Dr Martha Honey– Director of the Center for Responsible Travel
• Soraya Shattuck– Founder of Sustainable Tourism Solutions
• Jonathan Tourtellot– Geotourism Editor of National Geographic Traveler and principal of The Destination Stewardship Center
• Megan Epler Wood– Founder of The International Ecotourism Society and Director of Harvard’s International Sustainable Tourism Initiative
Although there were a few countries that appeared on multiple lists (including Costa Rica and India), we’ve narrowed their responses down to 15 sustainable travel destinations you should consider visiting in 2015…