The video is explicit, the message is simple: You can transform lives in one of the poorest districts of India by donating a goat.

A life-changing experience in India inspired volunteer Debbie Glasband to launch a program to provide an alternative source of income for tribal people: Goats.

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This week’s environmental protests all have the same key feature – scrutiny. In each case, the protestors are asking for a very specific response from those involved: a closer look at what’s going on, and what can be done to make things better.

Florida Swamp Protest

In Florida, Stevie Lowe has been convicted of resisting a law enforcement officer without violence. She chained herself to a tree as part of an environmental protest against Florida Power & Light (FP&L), whose Indiantown power plant is the focus of dispute. Environmentalists say that FP&L are draining the nearby Barley Barber swamp to service their plant – a claim FP&L deny. Lowe, who will spend ninety days in Martin County jail, said her action was designed to ‘instigate more public scrutiny of the Barley Barber Swamp’.

Indian Tribe protests - in London

In London, activists mounted a highly publicised protest at the AGM of Vedanta, a British mining company. Their concern is that a planned bauxite mine in Orissa, India will destroy a mountain and damage the habitat of a local tribe as well as that of indigenous animals and plants. Bauxite is strip-mined, leading to surface denudation and requiring the removal of features like lakes and forests. Around 90% of global bauxite is converted to aluminium.

The Kondh tribe wishes to stop the development and has enlisted the support of ActionAid and Survival International as well as celebrities like Bianca Jagger. ActionAid purchased a single share in Vedanta to allow tribal activist Sitaram Kulisika to attend the meeting on behalf of the Kondh. Kulisika says that a year ago Vedanta said it would not mine the area without tribal consent and that he wished all shareholders to keep the directors of the company to their promise.  Those shareholders include the Church of England which has shares worth over $4 million in the company. Vedanta claims the project is both ethically and environmentally sound.

Chinese protestors win one battle, but face another

In Hunan Province, China, a series of protests have taken place. The first were demonstrating against pollution problems caused by a chemical plant that has already closed owing to health and environment problems. The second protests, in the streets of Zhentou township, followed the detention of protestors who’d taken part in the first protest. Local government buildings were targeted, as people demanded to be fairly treated following health problems by the Xianhe Chemical Plant. The plant opened in 2004 and had a poor track record from the beginning –poor environmental management and the stockpiling of solid waste. Local people claim the plant was harming the environment by keeping the waste which had high concentrations of toxic heavy metals such as cadmium and indium, which were leaching into local drinking water.

Their complaints appear to have had substance, as the plant was ordered to cease production in March 2009 – now the local people want free health checks and treatment for those found to have excessive heavy metal levels because they fear that now the plant has closed, their situation will be ignored by officials.

Florida Swamp courtesy of chaunceydavis at Flickr under a creative commons licence

Ganesha is an alternative trading outfit that markets the traditional industries of India, working directly with the producers. We’ve more about them in our Paisley Park Jute Shopper Product Review.

The sent Life Goggles a pack of 20 leaf plates to test. But where do you start testing a plate? Kev did an excellent review of some plates made from potato starch, so I did what any self-respecting blogger would do: I copied him.

But as it turns out, these are quite different products. These disposable plates are made from sal and siali leaves, from the forests of Orissa, East India. And as you’d expect, leaves can’t hold that much weight, so doing a test like Kev’s weight bearing experiment with apples was a no-goer; in fact it struggles with a knife and fork on it. For an easy comparison, think of the leaf plates as a replacement for paper plates at parties or barbecues, but bigger. They’re about 30cm (12″) in diameter.

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