Blogs & Ecology

Image source: Facebook

Oh Facebook. That 2.0 of Myspace, which allows members to catch up with frenemies from high school they never wanted to see again, as well as find embarrassing pictures about themselves the day after the all night kegger. But, with 90 million users, thats a lot of energy and potential mobilization for good that can also come out of the site. Here is a roundup of some of the green applications on Facebook that you too can use to save the planet, or at least learn about it.

Image source: Getty files

So you think you can tell a good tall tale? Got a great story about that one time in Denali when you were woken up by a chipmunk in a tree repeatedly throwing acorns onto your tent and laughing wickedly while he mercilessly woke you up at 5am? (I'm looking in your direction, Chester!). Well, Defenders of Wildlife is looking for a few good nature stories and if yours is chosen you'll earn $1,000 at REI. (Maybe to buy an acorn-deflecting tent cover).

The author plants saplings in Boston.

After more than ten years of working in the environmental field, I thought I'd kick off my posts here from Earthwatch by coming out of the green closet:

Illegal Ivory Smuggling
The black-market value of elephant tusks has quadrupled since 2004. Even if over 68 tons of ivory have been confiscated over the past decade, poachers and smugglers are still doing good business and killing many elephants, including in countries where they are endangered.

New Weapon to Fight Poaching

Six Ways that Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
Yesterday I posted about MushroomExpert.com, and in the process of researching that post I came across the above video of Paul Stamets speaking at TED which, for some reason, we have yet to feature on TreeHugger (though we have written about ...

If you’re one of the legions of animal lovers who’ve spent a holiday evening admiring the lights at the Bronx Zoo but deploring the carbon emissions they inevitably create there’s good news for you. The Wildlife Conservation Society has decided to move the annual event to daylight hours to create an extravaganza that won’t leave a giant footprint behind when you’re gone....

Comprehensive Online Guide to Mushrooms and Fungi

When By Kids For Kids (BKFK) and The Weather Channel launched the Going Green Challenge to inspire kids to come up with neat inventions to help make an eco-difference there’s little doubt that the field was an open one. With a myriad of issues in need of resolution, the grand prize winner, Elizabeth Rintels, 12, of Keswick, Virginia, came up with a “Water Watcher” invention that helps monitor water usage in an ingenious way....

The department of minerals and energy (DME) has decided to grant a mining right to an Australian resources company to mine titanium from the sand dunes in the Xolobeni section of the pristine wild coast.

A media statement released by WESSA and Coastwatch last week claims that this fact, far from being announced publicly, was discovered via the Australian Stock Exchange, meaning that the DME has decided not to follow due process and inform interested and affected parties. Nor...

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Scientist Ian Bell measures a Hawksbill Turtle off the Great Barrier Reef. Photo credit: Ian Bell.

This is the first post from guest contributor and Planet Green NGO partner EarthWatch Institute.

You can't give up your day job to start that organic farm that you have been dreaming about and you don't have any land for an organic vegetable garden--but you really want to give it all a try. What to do? The answer is easy: volunteer for a week or two on someone else's. Through WWOOF-World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms--you can live the life, work the work and learn all about the organic movement. Plus you meet fascinating, like-minded people. WWOOF is a world-wide organisation, with branches all over Europe, North and South America and Africa. Volunteers are not paid, but are given meals and accommodation and valua...

I've been part of the environmental movement for a long time, but I learned about something ominous that happened this week -- something that made the hair on my arms stand on end.

The Associated Press broke the story of an egregious and sweeping assault by the Bush administration on regulations that helped bring the bald eagle and other creatures back from the brink of extinction. The worst part is that I believe it's probably a foreshadowing of the havoc that will be wreaked in the final months of this administration.

It’s wildflower time again! The moment when the N7 is literally inundated with daisies (you’ve already heard all of the apt descriptions about patchwork quilts and tapestries of flowers – well, they’re all true!) and just about everyone in Cape Town heads off to find the incredible delight of colour. This year’s wildflower display is slightly different.