Archive by date | June 2012

Fishing fleets grow but catch relatively less

Fishing fleets grow but catch relatively less

The world’s fishing fleets have expanded their range to cover most of the world’s oceans and increased their power to catch fish ten-fold, according to global analysis. But these same fleets are now catching fewer fish for the same amount of effort than they were in the 1950s, suggesting this important food resource is in perilous decline, according to Reg Watson of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.  Read more

Cachoeirinha Part II: Success (and failure) with family planning in Brazil

Cachoeirinha Part II: Success (and failure) with family planning in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO – More than a dozen or so adolescents arrived at the Cachoeirinha community centre for a sex education class this week. They may have been outnumbered adult visitors in town for Rio+20, many from far away lands with cameras, recorders, pens and notebooks, but the kids weren’t intimidated. Guided by a local educator, they talked freely about relationships and the usual suite of social pressures and youth anxieties, tinted by the realities of growing up in a favela apparently controlled by drug traffickers. Across their free programme T-shirts read the words, “How cool to know! Everybody has equal rights”.  Read more

Korean scientists hit back at creationist textbook campaign

A group of 30 South Korean evolutionary scientists and paleontologists have released a statement condemning a successful campaign by the creationist group Society for Textbook Revise (STR)to remove some examples of evolution from high-school biology textbooks (see South Korea surrenders to creationist demands).  Read more

Twenty years after first Earth Summit, disappointment and hope

Twenty years after first Earth Summit, disappointment and hope

RIO DE JANEIRO – Jilson Roberto stands in front of the community centre in Cachoeirinha, a poor favela on the west side of Rio de Janeiro, greeting all who happen by. Everybody knows him, and they all call him “Feijão”, meaning “bean.” Pictured at right with a community photo album, Feijão heads the local community association, making him a kind of mayor representing perhaps a few to several thousand residents (estimates vary). An employee at the Rio de Janeiro state legislature, he held the same volunteer post twenty years ago, when world leaders descended on Rio for the first Earth Summit; he also attended to advocate for sustainable development aid on behalf of a collection of 52 favelas. He says the group dubbed their proposal “eco-favela”.  Read more