La Mode Verte
Environmental Awareness Through Media ProductionsArchive for UNEP
Please Vote for Plastic Shores at the Green Up Film Festival
‘Plastic Shores‘, our documentary on plastic pollution in the oceans, has recently been accepted for the Green Up Film Festival, the first online festival for the green economy. With backers such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN RIC (where we premiered Plastic Shores in March), Oxfam, and the International Polar Foundation, it looks to be a great success. There is a public vote on the films that have been entered so please take a few moments out of your day to vote for Plastic Shores. Our trailer is above and a short film featuring Megan Lamson and Stacey Breining of the Hawaii Wildlife Fund on Big Island is below, with animations from the talented Alice Dunseath. The whole film is available to view for free for the duration of the festival.
UN Calls for Wealthy Nations to ‘Freeze’ Consumption of Resources
www.telegraph.co.uk 12th May 2011
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has released a paper that states the consumption of resources by wealthy nations must be ‘decoupled’ from economic growth. As it stands today, the world uses around 60 billion tonnes of resources per year but, under a business as usual scenario, this figure could leap to 140 billion by 2050. Per capita in developed countries, this accounts for 16 tonnes of resources consumed annually. This is compared to an average of 4 tonnes per person in India. Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP, said that if developed countries don’t start doing ‘more with less’, then resources such as iron ore, timber, fossil fuels, and fish will begin to run out (many are already running out). “Decoupling makes sense on all the economic, social and environmental dials,” he said. “People believe environmental ‘bads’ are the price we must pay for economic ‘goods.’ However, we cannot, and need not, continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable. Decoupling is part of a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy needed in order to stimulate growth, generate decent kinds of employment and eradicate poverty in a way that keeps humanity’s footprint within planetary boundaries.”
UNEP Report Exonerates Shell from Oil Spills In Nigeria
www.guardian.co.uk 22nd August 2010
A three-year investigation by the United Nations Environment Programme has cleared Royal Dutch Shell from a large part of the widespread oil pollution in the Nigerian Delta. The investigation, which cost $10million and consisted of a 100 person team headed by Mike Cowing, stated that only 10% of the pollution in the region has been caused by Shell’s equipment and negligence. The remaining 90% has been attributed to the actions of local groups involved in illegal ‘bunkering’ operations that taps oil from the pipe-lines. Around 300 spills are known to have occurred in the last half century causing an estimated 9million barrels of oil to spill into the local environment. This is almost double the 5milion barrels that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig this summer. The results of the study, which was paid for by Shell and commissioned by the Nigerian government, have angered family members of the 9 Ogoniland chiefs who were hung by the Nigerian government in 1995 for peacefully protesting against Shell’s pollution. Conservationists have also denounced the findings claiming the study was influenced by its sponsors. The Niger Delta currently has 606 oil fields that account for 8.2% of crude oil imported into the USA.
World Community Has Failed to Adequately Protect Oceans
e360.yale.edu 19th September 2010
Quoted from source:
‘With only 1 percent of the planet’s oceans currently under protection, the international community has fallen far short of the 10 percent target set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Convention on Biological Diversity, according to a new report. And even that percentage is inflated by the protection of very large marine parks, leaving numerous vulnerable areas unrepresented and unprotected, said Mark Spalding, a senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy and one of the report’s editors. While more than 4.2 million square-kilometers of ocean are now protected — about 1.17 percent of the planet’s marine area — most of that is in the continental shelf areas. The report says efforts so far have failed to protect a representative selection of regions, species, and habitats critical for biodiversity and conservation — particularly as scientists learn more about the effects of climate change on the planet’s oceans. The report was released by a coalition that includes scientists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the UN Environmental Program.’
