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A new youth and children’s strategy called Tunza – a Swahili word meaning ‘to treat with care and affection’ – has been launched by UNEP. An inaugural Tunza International Youth Conference was held in the Russian town of Dubna in August and it will be followed by further conferences in New London, Connecticut, United States of America next year and Sydney, Australia in 2005. An international tree-planting project, entitled Plant for the Planet, was launched in February, and the first issue of a new young people’s magazine, also called Tunza – available at www.ourplanet.com – came out on World Environment Day.
Boris Gromov, the Governor of the Moscow Region which helped to organize the Russian Conference, said: ‘in order to achieve results there is a real need not only to act every day, but to plan for the future by educating and training an environmentally sound next generation’ |
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Wildlife Works simultaneously produces fashionable T-shirts and conserves a protected area. The company – which calls itself ‘the world’s first business designed from the ground up around a consumer brand that stands for wildlife conservation’ – was born when a San Francisco management consultant, Mike Korchinski, was wondering how to relieve pressures on the environment, while on safari in Kenya.
Proceeds from the shirts – which are made from organic cotton and other environmentally friendly fabrics – have gone to create the 32,000-hectare Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary in Kenya and to provide jobs and build schools for the local people. A factory next to the reserve employs people from the community to make their products. As a result, the company reports, poaching has stopped.
The T-shirts are sold in some 200 stores and boutiques, and have been worn by stars including Catherine Zeta Jones, Helen Hunt, Charlize Theron, Kristin Davis, Alyssa Milano, Lucy Lawless and Lisa Nicole Carson.
Richard Leakey, the leading conservationist and former Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service, says: ‘I am convinced their for-profit wildlife conservation venture represents an important new direction for conservation, tying the conservation of wildlife and habitat to sustainable development in rural Kenya’. |
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A new CD produced by Hamner and Associates – ‘Greatest Hits of Cleaner Production, Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Business’ – is a collection of the best non-copyright publications and software in its field. It is intended for business managers, government officials, development programme managers, teachers and students. It contains enough information to help any organization dramatically improve its efficiency, reduce waste and pollution, and operate in a more environmentally sustainable way. |
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Indian scientists have announced a way of making plastics biodegradable – by exploiting the ‘sweet tooth’ of bacteria. A team at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune say they added small amounts of sugar to the plastics during manufacture – and that as a result they started to degrade within days, instead of lasting for decades in landfills. |
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One hundred of the best pictures from UNEP’s ‘Focus on Your World’ photo competition have gone on indefinite display at Heathrow’s Terminal Four in an exhibition sponsored by Hewlett Packard. Other airports are being approached to take similar exhibitions. The pictures, along with others from the competition, can be viewed at www.focusonyourworld.com |
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The Chacabuquito run-of-river hydropower project, high in the Chilean Andes, in June 2003 began delivering the first ever verified greenhouse gas emission reductions in the developing world, intended for the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. The project is part of the portfolio of the Prototype Carbon Fund, created with contributions totalling $180 million from the World Bank, six governments and 17 companies.
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PHOTOGRAPH: Marianne Thomas/UNEP/Topham
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