ENDENGERED ANIMALS - Part 2

 There are numerous species currently in danger of extinction. Most of them are caused directly or indirectly by man: climate change, destruction of their habitat, illegal hunting, etc.

Here are some of the species in risk of extinction: 

1. Amur Leopard 

2. Black Rhino - Javan Rhino - Sumatran Rhino

3. Bornean Orangutan - Sumatran Orangutan

4. Cross River Gorilla - Eastern & Western Lowland Gorilla 

5. Hawksbill Turtle - Leatherback Sea Turtle - Red Crowned Roofed Turtle

6. Sumatran Elephant 

7. Sunda Tiger - Malayan Tiger 

8. Saola 

9. North Atlantic Right Whale 

10. Tooth-billed Pigeon

11. Gharial ( fish eating crocodile from India) 

12. Kakapo ( ground-dwelling parrots from New Zealand )

13. Vaquita 

14. Vancouver Island Marmot

15. Giant Panda 

16. Yangtze Finless Porpoise 

17. Scimitar Oryx 

18. Southern Rockhopper Penguin 

19. Salt Creek Tiger Beetle

20. Western Chimpanzee

5Rs OF WASTE MANAGEMENT (Part 2)

 3. Reuse – Make Sure Things Last as Long as They Can

It simply means switching up disposable items for reusable and permanent alternatives. This means sourcing a reusable beverage container and carrying it with you when you are out and about. It means carrying reusable cutlery with you as a measure to avoid disposable cutlery.

Single use plastics such as cups, straws, gloves and now masks have generated a ‘throw away’, ‘one won’t hurt’ culture. The rate that we all consume plastic products is drastically becoming unimaginable, the plastic crisis has always been one of the world’s biggest environmental challenges. 

For almost every single-use item there is a reusable alternative. Here are some few examples:

•  Paper tissues – washable handkerchiefs
• Disposable razors – electric shaver or a straight-edge razor
• Paper towels – cotton cloths or microfibre
• Dish sponge – cotton cloth
• Tea bags – loose tea and a tea strainer
• Coffee pods – French press
• Baking parchment – grease or oil the pan or use a silicon mat
• Tin foil/cling film – use a food container or jar with a lid
• Paper bags/ plastic bags – bring your own cloth bag
• Bottled water – a glass or stainless steel water bottle and tap water

And the list goes on.     

Reusing and repairing go hand in hand. When you’re deciding whether to toss something and buy a new one, ask yourself if you can find a way to reuse or repair it. This applies to clothing, furniture, and technology. If your phone or laptop is broken, instead of immediately purchasing a new one, seek repair options first.

Reusing also means selling or donating your used items so they go to loving homes instead of the landfill. Have a jumble sale, stick it on sites like ebay or freecycle, you can even ask your friends and family if they have a need for things you don’t.

Another thing you can do is re-purpose or upcycle old things you don’t need into something cool and useful. This step doesn’t have to be expensive. Buy second hand, or make it yourself! Repair broken items. Repurpose old clothes, or household items and breathe new life into your wardrobe by participating in clothing swaps.

So how can we reuse waste? Here are some tips: 

- Give unwanted toys and books to hospitals or schools

- Put unwanted clothes in used clothing bins

- Use plastic containers for freezing or storing food items

- Save wrapping paper and boxes to use again

- Use old jars for storage

-Take old magazines to your local doctor's or dentist's surgery

-Shop at second hand stores or use online trading websites to buy items that are unwanted by others

- Take household items to your council’s resource recovery center

- Make memo pads out of waste paper

- Re-use envelopes - purchase reuse labels.  

4. Recycle – For Those Things You Can’t Refuse, Reduce, or Reuse

Recycling involves some form of reprocessing of waste materials to produce another product. For example, recycling plastic bottles to make buckets.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your waste is to recycle. After you have refused, reduced, and reused there shouldn’t be much left to recycle anyway. But with what there is, you should still make sure to separate your trash so that those resources can be reused instead of filling our landfills.

Many of us have been programmed to believe that recycling is the go-to solution for waste reduction. This is a misconception.

In reality this is still an expensive way to process the waste that can be reused. Glass jars and bottles could be kept and used in a zero waste store. Plastic can be upcycled to some extent but it never really goes away. It is better to refuse it.

Recycling infrastructure in its current state is quite limited and in many cases actually consists of “downcycling” – meaning that recyclable materials are made into low-quality, disposable goods that will ultimately end up in landfill.

Another problem is that recycling infrastructure cannot keep pace with the huge quantities of single-use disposables consumed and disposed of by humans at record speed.

Recyclable materials that are not successfully recycled into new products become landfilled, shipped to landfills in so called developing countries, or incinerated in Waste-to-Energy (WtE) programs.

It is also important to consider that the recycling process itself is highly energy intensive.

For these reasons recycling is treated by the Zero Waste movement as a last resort to be used only after steps 1 Refuse, 2 Reduce & 3 Reuse have been exhausted.

So what can be recycled? The main products that can be recycled are paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum, tin and plastic containers.

Composting and worm farms are methods of recycling organic waste.

Buy recycled. You can buy products that are made from recycled materials. This is called ‘Closing the Loop’.

PROTECTING EXISTING TREES part 2

In our last chapter, we listed down the dangers to existing plants and trees and what can damage or kill them. Since we have figured that out we now focus on how to protect them. We will list down the points and highlight others in the coming chapters.

Here is how we can protect plants/trees that are already there:

• Use less paper 
• Prevent unwarranted tree cutting 
• Finding an alternative to the use of wood
• Educating people on the benefits of trees
• Population control
• Curbing industrialization 
• Reducing mining and other harmful activities that lead to natural disasters such as floods and cyclones
• Avoid driving nails into trees to hand bird feeds
• Don't unnecessary pull barks of trees, hit or bend them 
• When moving the lawn avoid bumping of scraping into trees
• Support NGOs that specialize in protecting forests or those that  monitor activities to prevent and control forest fires, insect infestations and disease epidemic

Above all love your trees. Just like any other living organism trees need love and care to survive. 

Deforestation Part 2: HISTORY

Now that we know what deforestation means. Let us focus on how it started. Learning the history of deforestation will help us get a clear view as to how it affects us and the environment, and we can also make better decisions or future plans.

According to History Today, deforestation has been gaining momentum in the tropical regions of the world since 1950. But its history is long and stretches back to when humans first occupied earth. Their needs started to grow as they learnt how to cook on fire or stay warm during cool nights. This dates back to half a million years ago.

All that changed since then is the rate of acceleration, and that, compared to previous ages, environment has become more sensitive and irreversibly damaged. Before 150 about nine-tenths of all deforestation had occurred.

We will focus more on 'how' deforestation occurred in our next chapter. However, we need to know how early man came to a conclusion of chopping down trees for use. The first evidence of deforestation appears in the Mesolithic period (1), closed forests were converted to open ecosystems favorable to game animals. In the Neolithic period there was extensive deforestation for farming lands and wooden tools(2). In this way, as time and evolution of man went on, deforestation kept on increasing at a faster pace.

Let us note that deforestation is part of climate change. It is to take a natural cause no matter the involvement of man in speeding up the process. The Carbinoferous Rainforest Collapse (3) was an event that occurred 300 million years ago. The climate change causing the extinction of many plants and animal species, was abrupt as the climate became cooler and drier which were not favorable to the growth of rain forests.

Here an important question arises. Did we really have the need to cut down trees to survive? Yes climate change would have eventually set in deforestation but would we have survived without cutting down those trees? Did the early man have the knowledge that their actions will one day have adverse affects on humans and animals? and if they would not have cut down a single tree would man have survived today?

History does make a think and helps us find better ways in solving current issues as well as putting in place effective measures for a better future.

"Recognize your history in the present, to know your future "

1. Brown, Tony (1997). "Clearances and Clearings: Deforestation in Mesolithic/Neolithic Britain". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 16 (2): 133–146. doi:10.1111/1468-0092.00030.
2. ^ "hand tool: Neolithic tools". Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
3. Sahney, S.; Benton, M.J. & Falcon-Lang, H.J. (2010). "Rainforest collapse triggered Pennsylvanian tetrapod diversification in Euramerica". Geology. 38 (12): 1079–1082.