This project would have powered over a million homes and made a huge dent in New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. It is not happening now because of a group of NIMBY activists and the Environment Court’s ruling.

This is a huge blow, in itself, to renewable and wind energy proponents, but it also brings concerns for future wind energy projects.

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A Hector’s Dolphin showing the characteristic round dorsal fin.

The Wine

It started with Gemma McGrath who had moved from a job on Whale Watch boats to a barmaid in the small Otago village of Bannockburn which is about as far away from the sea as one can get in New Zealand.

Missing the dolphins and concerned by the steady decrease in their numbers, she spoke of them so passionately and persistently that she eventually got a farmer in the area to donate 3 tons of Pinot Gris grapes.

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Sirocco, a male Kakapo, is grinning from ear-to-ear as he makes a play for a very unusual partner.

While filming the BBC’s “Last Chance to See” series, filmmaker Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine have a surprising encounter with an amorous Kakapo named Sirocco.

Sirocco, one of just 124 of his kind, appears eager to increase the population of his species - whether or not there’s another Kakapo around.

In the meantime, however, a human head will do just fine.

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Icebreaker’s Bodyfit

Have you ever wanted to meet the sheep that was shorn for your clothes?  Just enter the “baa code” on your label into the Icebreaker website to meet where your sheep lives.

With most of the things you buy, you’re told little or nothing about how they’re made. Icebreaker is different.

We have a deep commitment to animal welfare, the welfare of the people who work with us, and the environment. And we have nothing to hide.

Your unique Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain. We’re sure you’ll find the experience as inspiring as we do. Enjoy your journey back to the source.

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LanzaTech has found that the same low-cost technology can be applied to biomass syngas, but the real excitement is in the success of this first-ever attempt to capture and convert steel mill waste gas into a clean, sustainable fuel.

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It is estimated that man has been in Oceania for up to 125,000 years. The land was there before man. And for a long time a balance has been found between man and nature. Perhaps that balance was achieved because man and nature were not separate entities, but one and the same. However, in the recent past, that balance has been disturbed by population and consumption. Man became an invader rather than an aboriginal. And with that, habit loss for other species has been a concern. And now life isn’t what it used to be in Oceania.

It is such an invasion, not just by humans, but species of both flora and fauna that threatens aboriginal life in Oceania. A new study, which was published in the international journal Conservation Biology expresses the need for governments to act quickly in order to halt the loss of biodiversity and the extinction of species.

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As recently as 1995, there were only 50 known Kakapo still surviving. Relentless hunting by humans, widespread forest clearing, and the introduction of dogs, cats, and rats nearly wiped these friendly, flightless birds off the planet.

Thanks to New Zealand’s Kakapo Recovery Programme’s intensive species management and successful breeding results, the Kakapo (Strigops habroptila) population has now increased to 124 birds.

The program requires intensive monitoring of wild adult birds on Codfish Island and Anchor Island - the only locations of the remaining Kakapo. Hand-raising of some of the chicks has also been necessary, and 17 Kakapo have been hand-raised and returned to the wild.

Kakapo Recovery Plan

The ultimate vision for the species is to have at least 150 adult females. Species management is guided by the Kakapo Recovery Plan to:

• Maximize recruitment in the kakapo population
• Minimize the loss of genetic diversity in the kakapo population
• Secure, restore or maintain sufficient habitat to accommodate the expected increase in the kakapo population
• Maintain public awareness and stakeholder support for kakapo conservation

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A New Zealand woman was rescued freezing and exhausted from the sea yesterday after a playful dolphin prevented her return to shore.

Eyewitnesses at the town of Mahia noticed the woman was at sea with the dolphin, known locally as Moko, for some time late yesterday afternoon, before she began screaming for help.

Speaking about the incident, Juanita Symes the manager of a local bar said, “My uncle Ian was down at the beach getting some salt water and he heard her screaming. He came running into the restaurant and said to me ‘there’s a girl stuck on the buoy and Moko won’t let her come back in.”

“At first I thought he was joking. Then another guy ran in from the beach and said we needed to get help.”

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I hate traffic. To me, there are few things worse in the world than having to sit idling in traffic, moving at an inch an hour, all because some dimwit blew out a tire. It is part of the reason I consider myself a country boy at heart. At least to me, the city is a nice place to visit, but I could never live there.

But a new, novel idea involving pedals and a monorail system has the potential not only to eliminate traffic, but emissions and accidents as well. Called simply The Schweeb, this self-enclosed, pedal-powered personal pod is already in use at an amusement park in New Zealand. Geoffrey Barnett and his team of designers see the Schweeb not only as a vehicle of amusement, but as a replacement for personal motor vehicles in traffic congested cities.

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Caribbean organisations have said that the environmental tax that the British Government is planning to impose on all flights will cause immense damage to the Caribbean economy. The tax is expected to be in the region of £100 pounds per passenger and will be levied on departure from British airports.

The Caribbean Tourism Organisation has written to many organisations and individuals ranging from the BBC to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, pointing out that the system used to define the tax level is unfair to the Caribbean. Because it works on a distance basis, measured between the British capital and the capital of the destination country, the Caribbean (defined in this case as Kingston Jamaica) ends up in a more expensive levy band that the USA.  The chair of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, speaking for many of the small islands, said, ‘Our countries’ economies are hugely dependent on tourism. But the British government plans to place us in a more expensive tax category compared to the whole of the USA. This puts us at a considerable disadvantage. To suggest this is a green tax and that the environmental impact of flying to California or Hawaii is less then flying to the Caribbean is patently untrue. Our holidaymakers and the overseas friends and relatives of Caribbean nationals who live in Britain are being heavily penalised and our countries call on Britain to do the right thing and change this injustice.’

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The project includes a backpackers’ hostel (www.rongobackpackers.com), a motel complex (www.karameamotels.com), a gallery (www.globalgypsy.com), a community radio station, permaculture farm and eco-tourism adventures. It is run by a group of dedicated, enthusiastic, positive volunteers from all over the world.

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There are quite a few three-wheelers these days: Aptera, Myers Motors and ZAP! Motors. And while those companies seem to be blocked from government funding, it isn’t stopping designers like 22-year-old Alex Hodge from New Zealand from churning out kickass mods like the Hawk.

The Hawk concept is part fighter jet, part sports car, and looks like it’s balls-out fun! The concept is built around the 999cc Honda RC51 V-twin engine has 10,000 rpm, 120 hp and a top speed of 144 mph.

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In early December 2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “ordered the military and police to crack down on illegal logging, after flash floods and landslides, triggered by rampant deforestation, killed nearly 340 people,” according to news reports. Fifteen years earlier, in 1989, the government of Thailand announced a nationwide ban on tree cutting following severe flooding and the heavy loss of life in landslides. And in August 1998, following several weeks of record flooding in the Yangtze River basin and a staggering $30 billion worth of damage, the Chinese government banned all tree cutting in the upper reaches of the basin. Each of these governments had belatedly learned a costly lesson, namely that services provided by forests, such as flood control, may be far more valuable to society than the lumber in those forests.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the earth’s forested area was estimated at 5 billion hectares. Since then it has shrunk to just under 4 billion hectares, with the remaining forests rather evenly divided between tropical and subtropical forests in developing countries and temperate/boreal forests in industrial countries. Since 1990, the developing world has lost some 13 million hectares of forest a year. This loss of about 3 percent each decade is an area roughly the size of Greece. Meanwhile, the industrial world is actually gaining an estimated 5.6 million hectares of forestland each year, principally from abandoned cropland returning to forests on its own and from the spread of commercial forestry plantations. Thus, net forest loss worldwide exceeds 7 million hectares per year.

Unfortunately, even these official data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) do not reflect the gravity of the situation. For example, tropical forests that are clearcut or burned off rarely recover. They simply become wasteland or at best scrub forest, yet they still may be counted as “forest” in official forestry numbers. Plantations, too, count as forest area, yet they also are a far cry from the old-growth forest they sometimes replace.

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The founders of Ecostore, a New Zealand based company, now with an American division based in Michigan, saw quite directly why using the usual cleaning products has an impact: They lived on a eco village where each of them was responsible for dealing with their waste water. When it didn’t just go down the pipe, out of sight, out of mind, but they directly saw the effect it was having on their pristine waterways, the need was apparent and the incentive there to do something about it.

Greater visibility of the impact of your choices is something I think many more people should experience. People generally aren’t purposely irresponsible in their choices, they just don’t know any better because of “invisible” impacts.

They set about finding people to help them create plant based, toxins free cleaners that would still be as effective as the conventional options, minus the petroleum and synthetics based ingredients that can have a negative effect both on the environment and the people that use them. Being rapidly biodegradable was also a priority.

One might think that the main people buying this were more green skewed people. But according to Ecostore,

“…testimonials from other parents (many of whom were unaware of the benefits of eco-friendly products) began to pour in with wonderful news of their children’s allergies and eczema clearing up. Many noted that any respiratory issues were healing, and many lingering chronic conditions were disappearing.”

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A dinosaur age hatchling has been found in mainland New Zealand, the first of its kind to be seen there in over 200 years.

Although it may look like a lizard, it’s not. The tuatara (shown above) is perhaps best classified as the last living “proto-reptile”, and it’s the only surviving member of a distinct lineage that thrived 200 million years ago. In fact, it was misclassified as a lizard until 1867, when Albert Günther of the British Museum noted that the unique creature had features similar to birds, turtles and crocodiles.

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The Treliske merino wool range includes organic babywear, baby blankets, knitwear and knitting wool yarns which free from harmful chemicals. It is natural, undyed and unbleached and is grown and manufactured without the 8,000 chemicals found in the textile industry.

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The front page has pleasing images of piles of soft, fuzzy fabric and clothing, made from what it describes as, “…a 100% natural fiber product made from 60% merino wool and 40% paihamu spun together to make a premium cashmere-like fabric that is softer, warmer, and lighter than plain wool.” Sounds good so far, right?

My eyebrow started to cock when I read a seemingly throwaway sentence, without a connecting justification for it: “Eco-friendly and practical - talk about a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle.”

Going to the Ecological Profile page to learn more, I was surprised to read what I can say is the most unique claim to being sustainable I’ve seen in a while - Basically, by killing them for their fur, they are helping restore ecological balance on New Zealand.

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Rob Gilchrist, a former activist, had spied on 9 different peaceful environment and animal welfare groups over the past 10 years before his girlfriend discovered suspicious emails, New Zealand’s Sunday Star-Times reported in a 3,200-word expose today.

“Protests are part of a healthy democracy,” said Rochelle Rees, Gilchrist’s girlfriend. “The police are supposed to be protecting that but instead they are inhibiting it. It’s foolish of them since stomping on peaceful protest is the best way to make people more extreme and push them underground.”

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