More and more homeowners are using rain barrels to conserve water while collecting soft, non-chlorinated rainwater to nourish grass and plants.

This weekend, in Calgary, Canada, Clean Calgary Association, in partnership with the City of Calgary, will hold its 8th Annual Rain Barrel Sale.

With spring coming, local residents there are thinking about their lawns and gardens. Water usage in Calgary doubles in the spring and summer due largely to lawn irrigation.

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Hunting to Conserve in Uganda

Edyau Echodu, the warden of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Pian-Upe wildlife reserve, introduced the hunting plan. He said that hunting would help get rid of old animals that attack human settlements, killing and injuring people and damaging crops. He acknowledged that it was also aimed at increasing earnings from tourists.

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Ready to spring into action? Here is a roundup of tips and tutorials to do some of these projects in your own home.

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“Connecting with nature calms and soothes both children and adults, and it is something that both children and adults can do for a wealth of benefits, for free”, says REAL School Gardens.

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SAB Ltd is the South African subsidiary of SABMiller which is the second largest brewery in the world .

Water Neutrality

In October 2008, Dr Deon Nel, Head of the WWF Sanlam Living Waters Partnership explained

“The concept of water neutrality, based on its carbon equivalent, has been used loosely over the past years; however, until now no-one has been able to quantitatively justify these claims. We believe that our scheme is the first in the world that allows participants to truly claim to be water neutral.”

Participants will replenish water supplies, by investing in projects that quantitatively supplement water supplies equal to their water usage.

Note: Water neutrality has taken on a form in certain areas that is significantly different to the process introduced here by WWF.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2009/01/14/wwf-and-worlds-second-largest-brewer-replensih-water-in-south-africa/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/12/facts-and-figures-why-water-could-be-worth-fighting-for/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/12/facts-and-figures-why-water-could-be-worth-fighting-for/#comments Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:22:03 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/12/facts-and-figures-why-water-could-be-worth-fighting-for/ Over one billion people - 18% of the world’s population - lack access to safe drinking water worldwide. Only 56% of Africa’s 800 million population have access to clean water. About 700 million people in 43 countries are affected by water scarcity, according to the UN.

In another few years - in 2025 to be precise - the number could swell to 3 billion driving back gains in the fight against poverty and under-development, otherwise known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

For many people around the world, safe drinking water is a scarce resource and out of necessity, they resort to what’s available - polluted water.

But contaminated water isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly. Some 1.8 million people die every year of diseases like cholera, caused by poor sanitation. Tens of millions of others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/12/facts-and-figures-why-water-could-be-worth-fighting-for/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/10/one-dollar-diet-project-vs-one-dollar-family-survival-project/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/10/one-dollar-diet-project-vs-one-dollar-family-survival-project/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:58:58 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/10/one-dollar-diet-project-vs-one-dollar-family-survival-project/ Christopher and Kerri are a couple and social justice teachers out on a mission. Since the beginning of September 2008, they have been on a unique 30-day experiment on food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty and social psychology - trying to live on a one dollar a day diet.

But this insightful challenge - in their own words - to help us better understand and teach about a variety of concerns, could have been more interesting if it was broader in perspective.

Instead of trying to spend just a dollar on food daily from their comfort in Encinitas, California, where a tub of toothpaste costs $4.99, they should have enlisted a family in, say, Chittagong, Bangladesh or Turkana, Kenya, and asked them to survive on a dollar a day.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/09/10/one-dollar-diet-project-vs-one-dollar-family-survival-project/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/24/man-suffers-from-1415-diseases-blames-his-gorilla-meat-diet/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/24/man-suffers-from-1415-diseases-blames-his-gorilla-meat-diet/#comments Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:42:36 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/24/man-suffers-from-1415-diseases-blames-his-gorilla-meat-diet/ The average man living in forest-prone areas and who depends on meat from endangered apes and other wildlife for his proteins plays the role of a carrying agent for the hundreds of infectious diseases that humanity is suffering from.

Now experts are warning of the danger to humanity this lifestyle may be posing. Most of these diseases, identified in medical terms as zoonotic because of their ability to jump from animal to man, have been labeled as “emerging infectious diseases” or EIDs.

Over 60 percent of the 1,415 infectious diseases currently known to modern medicine are capable of infecting both humans and animals. Most of these diseases originated in animals and now infect people and include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths, with 175 pathogenic species associated with diseases considered to be ‘emerging’.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/24/man-suffers-from-1415-diseases-blames-his-gorilla-meat-diet/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/20/african-elephants-save-girl-11-years-from-forced-marriage/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/20/african-elephants-save-girl-11-years-from-forced-marriage/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:53:42 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/20/african-elephants-save-girl-11-years-from-forced-marriage/ A Kenyan schoolgirl has revealed how she hid in a forest habited by elephants as she made an escape from a marriage suitor two and a half times her age.

She gathered all her inner strength and courage to cross a crocodile infested river near her home deep in the arid Masai warrior tribe country with her father and her wannabe husband in hot pursuit.

Betty Lason, now 17 and still in primary school, said recently that she vividly remembers the incident six years ago because she executed her plan one evening after returning to her new husband’s home from day-long sheep and goat herding in the bush under the scorching sun.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/08/20/african-elephants-save-girl-11-years-from-forced-marriage/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/07/10/albinos-declared-endangered-species-in-africa-and-good-luck-in-the-us/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/07/10/albinos-declared-endangered-species-in-africa-and-good-luck-in-the-us/#comments Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:14:29 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/07/10/albinos-declared-endangered-species-in-africa-and-good-luck-in-the-us/ It is official, and the pronouncement was made by none other than the head of state himself: albinos in Tanzania are an endangered species and must be protected!

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete recently ordered a massive police crackdown on witchdoctors who lure and kill albino people for body parts to be used in ritualistic healing sessions with their clients as a talisman for good luck.

Woe unto you if you are an albino in this poor east Africa nation of 39 million people. The government says 19 have been murdered in 2008, but activists claim the figure could be as high as 60, in a country where more than 160,000 are said to suffer the genetic condition in which the person lacks pigmentation in the eyes, skin and hair.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/07/10/albinos-declared-endangered-species-in-africa-and-good-luck-in-the-us/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/04/louis-vuitton-fashion-darfur-and-copyright-1-simple-charity-rule/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/04/louis-vuitton-fashion-darfur-and-copyright-1-simple-charity-rule/#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:17:46 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/04/louis-vuitton-fashion-darfur-and-copyright-1-simple-charity-rule/ How far can one go for charity, especially the artistic types like those who design tees? Even if it is a worthy fund raising project for genocide victims in Darfur, Sudan or, say, a children’s global cancer awareness campaign?

Well, this question can better be answered when you consider that charity knows no copyright, especially when it involves a fashion icon like Louis Vuitton and one of the French fashion house’s creations.

For 26 year old Danish art student, Nadia Plesner, being slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit demanding “$7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays Louis Vuitton’s cease-and-desist letter and $ 7,500 for each day she mentions the name ‘Louis Vuitton’ on her website” has never overridden a good cause and she is as defiant as ever.

Those sums and more - legal costs for the suit and another $15,000 for related “other expenses”. But what would Louis Vuitton do with the money if their lawsuit succeeds? Of two guesses, only one can suffice; either to fund further research for a hyped luxury product or give away to victims of the war in Darfur.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/04/louis-vuitton-fashion-darfur-and-copyright-1-simple-charity-rule/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/02/facing-the-knife-no-longer-egoistic-male-circumcision-fights-hivaids-in-africa/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/02/facing-the-knife-no-longer-egoistic-male-circumcision-fights-hivaids-in-africa/#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:52:06 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/02/facing-the-knife-no-longer-egoistic-male-circumcision-fights-hivaids-in-africa/ To most African communities, facing the knife is akin to being a “real man”. Male circumcision is an important rite of passage that moves the young man that undergoes it a notch higher towards marriage and earns him a respectable position in society. But to a few African tribes, like the Zulu warrior nation in South Africa and the Luo in Kenya, male circumcision is not in the books. But this may soon change.

Recent extensive medical research and studies on the prevalence of HIV/Aids in Africa indicate that male circumcision could help reduce the spread of the disease on the continent and elsewhere. A massive roll out of free male circumcision programs in Swaziland, Rwanda, Zambia and Kenya is underway and experts hope results will reflect the 60% reduction in new infection rates documented in the studies.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/06/02/facing-the-knife-no-longer-egoistic-male-circumcision-fights-hivaids-in-africa/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/30/global-response-enjoins-local-politics-to-threaten-35m-american-investment-in-obamas-homeland/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/30/global-response-enjoins-local-politics-to-threaten-35m-american-investment-in-obamas-homeland/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 14:36:46 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/30/global-response-enjoins-local-politics-to-threaten-35m-american-investment-in-obamas-homeland/ Local politics and pure malice can be enough to kill a noble project, but to have quite a respectable environmental action network like the Boulder, Colorado-based Global Response get enjoined in endless intrigues, extortion and tomfoolery that are threatening a $35 million organic farming project in Kenya is quite a story.

Expert findings, personal research and a discreet fact-finding visit to the Dominion Farms project in Siaya, a rural agricultural district, also homeland of Democratic presidential contender, Barack Obama’s father, is all it took to conclude that the letter-writing group partly funded by the New Earth Foundation may have made the goof of the decade.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/30/global-response-enjoins-local-politics-to-threaten-35m-american-investment-in-obamas-homeland/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/14/28-peanut-hero-creates-sustainable-sheller/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/14/28-peanut-hero-creates-sustainable-sheller/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 09:01:34 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/14/28-peanut-hero-creates-sustainable-sheller/ How many heroes can create a revolutionary gadget that has changed the lives of poor farmers and costs only $28 and refuses to get rich from it? In the life of Jock Brandis, just a cursory look at the bloody fingers of women peanut shellers in an impoverished village in Africa is all it took to create the universal nut sheller from locally available sustainable materials.

A Canadian of Dutch descent, he has since passed on the skill to local farmers in Mali, where he first presented his model, and elsewhere on the continent where he trains them for free and still refuses to patent the cheap gadget which has impressed even infamous peanut farmers like Jimmy Carter. A Gift to the World, he calls it.

Mama, I promise to look this Brandis guy up for you and bring him to our village. My mama, in her 55 years, still finds time from her teaching job in the village school to employ farm hands to shell peanuts for her. And she reaps an impressive twenty 50 kg sacks a year. Not bad for her agrarian moonlighting, hmm…

Feted as a CNN Hero for his innovation, Brandis has worked with communities in 17 countries across four continents through his Full Belly Project to make hundreds of machines locally at minimal cost resulting in health benefits and increased family incomes.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/14/28-peanut-hero-creates-sustainable-sheller/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/12/how-solar-lighting-is-revolutionizing-african-communities/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/12/how-solar-lighting-is-revolutionizing-african-communities/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 11:19:23 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/12/how-solar-lighting-is-revolutionizing-african-communities/ The people of an impoverished southern African nation have everything to thank the Sun for; because a new revolution is sweeping across rural Malawi, lighting up village communities with cheap solar lamps that almost everybody is now able to afford.

The problem has been that access to modern electricity is but a privilege for the few who can afford it, and the majority are burning kerosene for lighting, a practice known to be expensive, dangerous and harmful to health.

An initiative run by Solar Aid, in partnership with the UK non-profit, TRAID, the project is geared toward protecting the environment and reducing poverty by introducing simple, locally assembled, affordable LED solar lanterns to the poorest communities, providing residents with a cheap alternative to kerosene while also generating employment opportunities for the underprivileged and ill.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/12/how-solar-lighting-is-revolutionizing-african-communities/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/09/coral-adventure-on-east-africa-coast-a-safari-to-kenyas-reefs/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/09/coral-adventure-on-east-africa-coast-a-safari-to-kenyas-reefs/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 09:57:34 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/09/coral-adventure-on-east-africa-coast-a-safari-to-kenyas-reefs/ A safari adventure to Africa to view corals? This might sound interesting to many people including eager adventurers like myself.

I have always marveled at the wonders of the sea; beautiful marine creatures that are awe-inspiring to watch. But one trip on a glass-bottom tourist boat a few months ago made me promise to go back for more, and I hadn’t found the time until now. I wanted to see the coral bed under the cool waters off the Indian Ocean coast again.

Coral reefs are among Earth’s most diverse, productive, and beautiful ecosystems, and have become exciting spots for tourist who admire water life and sports. Its now not uncommon to see tourists in glass bottomed boats being ferried to coral gardens for viewing.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/05/09/coral-adventure-on-east-africa-coast-a-safari-to-kenyas-reefs/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/16/expedition-nets-fly-in-the-face-of-malaria/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/16/expedition-nets-fly-in-the-face-of-malaria/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:43:21 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/16/expedition-nets-fly-in-the-face-of-malaria/ On April 25, 2008, designated the first World Malaria Day, 3,000 children or more in sub-Saharan Africa, majority of them under the age of five years, will die from malaria, one of the deadliest preventable diseases on the planet, global health data indicate.

Malaria, the dreaded and life-threatening disease continues to kill between 1 million and 3 million people each year, many of them pregnant women in Africa.

A two-month long 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) expedition on the Zambezi, one of Africa’s longest rivers, that begun on 29 March 2008 led by two adventurers, Helge Bendl, a journalist, and Andy Leemann, a boating enthusiast, partnering with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, covering six nations in southern Africa aims to put a spotlight on the plight of malaria-stricken communities on the continent which contributes 90 percent of the global annual death toll.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/16/expedition-nets-fly-in-the-face-of-malaria/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/10/green-fishing-according-to-islam/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/10/green-fishing-according-to-islam/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:10:35 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/10/green-fishing-according-to-islam/ For every Muslim, Halal or ‘permissible’ in Arabic means that it passes the test, as far as food is concerned. This will certainly include correct handling procedures and many more practices.

But the question that has dogged Muslims for centuries has always been how to catch fish, using permissible methods that do not damage the environment.

“Lawful to you is the pursuit of water-game (fishing) and its use for food, for the benefit of yourselves and those who travel” (Surah Al-Maida, v. 96)

Dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing, and bottom trawling are all fishing techniques that may cause habitat destruction. A 2006 article in Science magazine said bottom trawling, the practice of pulling a fishing net along the sea bottom behind trawlers, removes around 5 to 25% of an area’s seabed life on a single run.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/10/green-fishing-according-to-islam/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/02/play-and-generate-see-saw-electricity-this-is-africa/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/02/play-and-generate-see-saw-electricity-this-is-africa/#comments Wed, 02 Apr 2008 15:57:17 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/02/play-and-generate-see-saw-electricity-this-is-africa/ All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so goes the old adage. But in Africa, green innovations by very creative and eco-imaginative minds seem to be turning this adage around, and perhaps we will soon hear of: “All work and play combined sustains a green Africa”.

It all started with the PlayPump, the water system that is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank that featured on Ecoworldly a while ago.

A see-saw that generates electricity when played on by children? Now there is this simple looking see-saw which when played on by children in Africa, generates electricity to help power up their school. It has no name yet but if this trend continues, it looks like Africa will be one very big playground for green play, literally.

You wanna play, somebody?

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2008/04/02/play-and-generate-see-saw-electricity-this-is-africa/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/02/23/water-is-childs-play-but-you-gotta-spin/ http://ecoworldly.com/2008/02/23/water-is-childs-play-but-you-gotta-spin/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:19:33 +0000 Sam Aola Ooko http://ecoworldly.com/2008/02/23/water-is-childs-play-but-you-gotta-spin/ Water in Africa is precious, like life itself. Women and children, in most rural and poor urban communities all over the continent, trek tens of miles daily or pay dearly for a gallon. But an innovative pump is giving children in South Africa a more definitive role in bringing clean, sustainable water to their communities.

Powered by play, the PlayPump water system is a children’s merry-go-round attached to a water pump and storage tank. It provides easy access to clean drinking water, brings joy to children, and leads to improvements in health, education, gender equality, and economic development.

Hailed by the World Bank as “one of the world’s most innovative designs capable of providing self sustainable free clean water to poor communities, as well as being an effective delivery system for social messages”, the PlayPump system is a merry go round that pumps water from a ground source as children spin, and they like working hard at it. Talk of ingenuity! What’s more, it is a wonderful social media project: adverts are placed strategically on the equipment to warn on dangers of disease, including HIV/ Aids.

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