Quarantine keeps crime in check––for now ROME, CASTEL VOLTURNO, Italy––The deadly global COVID-19 pandemic, killing nearly 32,500 Italians to date, might if anything have made Castel Volturno, the unlikely spay/neuter hub of the nation, just a little bit safer. Certainly stay-at-home orders seem to have at least temporarily reduced the mob violence for which […]
Ravaging Asia & Africa: a much deadlier plague than COVID-19
World fiddles while grasshoppers munch NINGBO, China; NAIROBI, Kenya––A much deadlier plague than the COVID-19 coronavirus is sweeping westward from China through Pakistan, across Central Asia, and throughout the Horn of Africa, flying 100 miles a day, devouring crops enough to feed as many as 34 million people, according to the United Nations Food […]
Two inches of rain means life or death to animals in Kenya
Flash floods broke devastating drought, but not drought cycle menacing wildlife & livestock NAIROBI, Kenya––Just two inches of rain over two days, about what Seattle gets on average in just two weeks, in mid-March 2018 triggered flash floods killing at least 15 Kenyans, marooning six tented camps for wildlife tourists in the Maasai Mara […]
Kenya crisis shows need to transition out of animal agriculture
The issue is not just grazers vs. wildlife U.S. and European concern over the drought-driven conflict besetting central Kenya in early 2017 tends to focus on the impacts afflicting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and eco-tourism. This is understandable because these are the aspects of Kenya most often seen by outsiders, as viewers of wildlife documentaries, films […]
Keeping the Horn of Africa impaled on dilemma
How rebuilding drought-stricken herds perpetuates starvation & poverty PARIS, NAIROBI––The 2014 film documentary Cowspiracy was rarely mentioned among the many conspiracy theories pertaining to global warming and climate change that were bandied about in connection with the recent COP 21 Paris Climate Conference. Most of the COPs, “COP” in this context being short for United […]
Fallen crane & stampede take spotlight from haj animal victims
At least 900,000 animals killed among 24 nations RIYADH, Saudi Arabia––After decades of global controversy over animal transport and slaughter in connection with Eid al Adha sacrificial rites, the animal victims of the 2015 Islamic pilgrimage season went almost unnoticed amid furor over human victims. The start of the pilgrimage season, called the haj […]
Factory farming & food security in China, Brazil, & Ethiopia
Climate, Food Security, & Growth: Ethiopia’s Complex Relationship With Livestock (22 pages) by Mia MacDonald & Sangamithra Iyer Cattle, Soyanization, & Climate Change: Brazil’s Agricultural Revolution (42 pages) Skillful Means: The Challenge of China’s Encounter With Factory Farming (28 pages) both by Mia MacDonald & Justine Simon, from Brighter Green, 2011. Free downloads from: http://brightergreen.org/brightergreen.php?id=24 […]
Evictions to clear a park in Ethiopia
While land invasions and their aftermath destroy the remnants of wildlife protection in Zimbabwe, the African Parks Foundation has reportedly introduced to Ethiopia the heavy-handed relocation of longtime land occupants in the name of conservation that helped to create the pressures leading to the Zimbabwean debacle. “Ethiopia wants a Kenyan-style network of wildlife parks […]