January, 28 2010, 03:46pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dr. Faisal Moola, Science Director, David Suzuki Foundation - (647) 993-5788
Dr. Jim Pojar, Report author and senior ecologist - (250) 847-9429
Protect Nature to Protect Us
New report and accompanying letter signed by top international scientists and environmental thinkers urges government to integrate nature conservation into provincial climate action strategy.
VANCOUVER
British Columbia's fight against climate change should focus on
conserving at least 50% of its land base using new strategies for
nature conservation and carbon storage, says a new peer-reviewed report
by senior ecologist Dr. Jim Pojar.
Download A New Climate for Conservation report as a .pdf now >>
"Our
survival is intertwined with nature's survival, and climate change is
forcing us to re-evaluate the way we protect nature," said Dr. Pojar.
"A minimum conservation target of 50% is what's necessary to give our
plants and animals a fighting chance to adapt, while also keeping and
drawing more carbon out of the atmosphere so that over time we can slow
and reduce climate change."
The 50% figure emphasizes expansion
and connection of existing protected areas plus development of new
buffer zones and restoration areas, allowing sustainable resource
development while providing refuge for species and ecosystems across a
changing landscape. Additionally, because forestry economics are
changing dramatically, BC should look to opportunities opening for
conservation as a means of re-inventing the industry of the future.
There
are precedents for large-scale conservation in Canada. Ontario and
Quebec have made commitments to protect more than 50% of their Northern
Boreal regions, and BC has its own successful examples to build on,
including Haida Gwaii and the Great Bear Rainforest. Benefits of
large-scale conservation include greater clarity for where and how
resource development occurs, as well as economic and social benefits
like ecosystem services (e.g. clean air and water) and new markets for
carbon and conservation.
Accompanied by a letter signed by
several of the world's top environmental thinkers, including Dr. James
Hansen, Dr. Michael Soule and Bill McKibben, and released to coincide
with the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, the report is the
second in less than a month to suggest that BC needs to change the way
it manages its environment in response to climate change.
Download the endorsed letter to BC Premier Gordon Campbell here >>
"There's
a small price for being too early, but a huge penalty for being too
late when it comes to fighting climate change," said Dr. James Hansen,
world-renowned climatologist and adjunct professor at Columbia
University. "Our efforts for mitigation and adaptation will be
meaningless unless they include immediate and substantial protection of
the natural systems that sustain us."
A New Climate for Conservation Media Kit
Click here to download the full report as a .pdf >>
If you have Flash installed, click here to view the full report online >>
Click here to download the executive summary of the report as a .pdf >>
Click here to read a brief summary of the report >>
Click here to download the media backgrounder as a .pdf >>
Click here to download the endorsed letter to B.C. Premier Campbell >>
Founded in 2000, ForestEthics is a nonprofit environmental organization with staff in Canada, the United States and Chile. Our mission is to protect Endangered Forests and wild places, wildlife, and human wellbeing--one of our focus areas is climate change, which compromises all of our efforts if left unchecked. We catalyze environmental leadership among industry, governments and communities by running hard-hitting and highly effective campaigns that leverage public dialogue and pressure to achieve our goals.
LATEST NEWS
'Evil and Cruel': GOP Lawmaker Shamed for Unloading Medicaid-Related Stock Before Voting to Gut Program
"Their bill will gut Medicaid and kill people, and they know it," said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.).
Jul 03, 2025
Republican Congressman Robert Bresnahan of Pennsylvania got publicly shamed by many of his congressional colleagues on Thursday after it was revealed he unloaded a Medicaid-related stock before voting for a massive budget package that enacted historically devastating cuts to the program.
Quiver Quantitative, an investment data platform that tracks stock trades made by politicians and other prominent public figures, revealed on its X account that Bresnahan recently sold shares he'd owned in Centene Corporation, a for-profit firm that specializes in delivering healthcare exchanges for Medicaid. In the weeks since he sold his shares in the company, their value plunged by more than 40 percent.
Quiver Quantitative added that while Bresnahan claims not to manage his own stock portfolio, he does not appear to have set up a qualified blind trust that would eliminate potential conflicts of interest between his investments and his work as a member of Congress.
Regardless, many of Bresnahan's Democratic colleagues reacted with fury and disgust to revelations that the Centene shares were dropped before he voted for a bill that will slash more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the span of a decade.
"This Congressman literally dumped stock in a Medicaid provider company right before this bill came to the floor," wrote Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) on X. "Don't be fooled—these guys know exactly what they're doing."
"Wow," marveled Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). "So he votes to gut Medicaid and throw 17 million people off of their healthcare and then dumps his Medicaid related stock to cover his own ass? That's just evil and cruel."
"If the Big Ugly Nasty Bill doesn't hurt Medicaid, why are Republicans selling their Medicaid-associated stocks?" asked Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). "Their words say one thing, their actions another. Their bill will gut Medicaid and kill people, and they know it."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ripped Bresnahan for "protecting his stock portfolio while ripping away health care from 17 million Americans" with his vote to gut Medicaid.
"This is Washington at its worst," she added. "We need to ban Congressional stock trading."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Climate Change Fueling 'Most Widespread and Damaging' Droughts in History: UN Report
"This is not a dry spell," said the co-author of a new U.N. report. "This is a slow-moving global catastrophe."
Jul 03, 2025
Climate change is driving "some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history," according to a report published Wednesday on global drought hotspots.
Over the past two years, droughts have fueled increased food insecurity, dehydration, and disease that have heightened poverty and political instability in several regions of the world, according to research by the U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
"This is not a dry spell," says Dr. Mark Svoboda, report co-author and NDMC Director. "This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I've ever seen. This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on."
The report examined conditions in some of the globe's most drought-prone regions. They found that the economic disruption caused by droughts today is twice as high as in 2000.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, which have been blighted with dangerously low levels of rainfall, more than 90 million people face acute hunger.
Somalia has been hit particularly hard, with 4.4 million, more than a quarter of the population, facing "crisis level" food insecurity in early 2025. Zambia, meanwhile, faced one of the world's worst energy crises last year when the Zambezi River dried up, causing its hydroelectric dams to run critically low.
Other drought-plagued regions have seen wide ranges of ecological and economic disruptions.
In Spain, low levels of rainfall in 2023 devastated olive crops, causing olive oil prices to double. In the Amazon Basin, low water levels caused a mass death of fish and endangered dolphins. The Panama Canal became so depleted that trade vessels were forced to re-route, causing multi-week shipping delays. And in Morocco, Eid celebrations had to be cancelled due to a shortage of sheep.
Recent studies of drought have found that they are increasingly caused not by lack of rainfall, but by aggressive heat, which speeds up evaporation. The areas hit the hardest over the past two years were ones already suffering from the most severe temperature increases. It was also exacerbated by a particularly severe El Niño weather cycle in 2023-24.
"This was a perfect storm," says report co-author Dr. Kelly Helm Smith, NDMC Assistant Director and drought impacts researcher. "El Niño added fuel to the fire of climate change, compounding the effects for many vulnerable societies and ecosystems past their limits."
Though the effects of droughts are often felt most acutely in areas already suffering from poverty and instability, the researchers predict that as they get worse, the effects will be felt worldwide.
In 2024, then the hottest year on record, 48 of the 50 U.S. states faced drought conditions, the highest proportion ever seen. Drought in the U.S. has coincided with a dramatic increase in wildfire frequency and severity over the past 50 years.
"Ripple effects can turn regional droughts into global economic shocks," Smith said. "No country is immune when critical water-dependent systems start to collapse."
The researchers advocated for investments in global drought prevention, but also for broader measures to address the existing inequalities that make droughts more severe.
"Drought has a disproportionate effect on those with few resources," Smith said. "We can act now to reduce the effects of future droughts by working to ensure that everyone has access to food, water, education, health care and economic opportunity."
The researchers also emphasized the urgency of coordinated action to confront the climate crisis.
"The struggles...to secure water, food, and energy under persistent drought offer a preview of water futures under unchecked global warming," said Svoboda. "No country, regardless of wealth or capacity, can afford to be complacent."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump-GOP Budget Bill Will Give Top 1% Over $1 Trillion in Tax Breaks: Analysis
The amount set to flow to a "tiny sliver of affluent families" over the next decade is roughly equal to the Medicaid cuts included in the Republican bill, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Jul 03, 2025
An analysis released Thursday estimates that the Republican legislation on the brink of final passage in Congress would deliver over $1 trillion in combined tax breaks to the richest 1% of Americans over the next decade—an amount roughly equal to the bill's unprecedented cuts to Medicaid.
The new analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which utilizes data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation and other sources, finds that the "tiny sliver of affluent families" in the top 1% of the U.S. income distribution will "receive tax cuts totaling $1.02 trillion over the next decade."
The centerpiece of Trump's megabill is a trillion-dollar tax cut to the wealthy, paid for by increasing the national debt and cutting public services. pic.twitter.com/ISr2XuIdJQ
— ITEP (@iteptweets) July 3, 2025
ITEP has previously shown that the Republican bill's tax cuts—largely extensions of expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law—would be highly skewed to the wealthy, with the small percentage of households at the very top receiving significantly more in total tax breaks than middle- and lower-income Americans.
"Sixty-nine percent of the net tax cuts would go to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026, only 11% would go to the middle fifth of Americans, and less than 1% would go to the poorest fifth," the group found. "The $107 billion in net tax cuts going to the richest 1% next year would exceed the amount going to the entire bottom 60% of taxpayers."
ITEP's new analysis was released as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wrapped up a record-breaking, eight-hour-plus speech against the GOP legislation, which delayed a final vote on the measure. Republicans are expected to pass the unpopular bill on Thursday.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular