For the second time, the Kayapo people of Brazil are fighting to stop their homes being flooded for the construction of a hydro-electric dam.
Thousands of them will be displaced if this government-backed project goes ahead. Rainforest will be destroyed, fisheries and other wildlife, on which indiginous people depend, will disappear for good.
The dam is being promoted as a clean energy scheme but those against it say its environmental and social costs are too high.
News of their protest came on the day the Welsh government urged conservationists to see sense and back construction of a £15 billion barrage across the Severn Estuary. The similarities between the two proposals are striking.
The point of a barrage, stretching 10 miles from Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare, is to harness the power of the Severn’s tides. Its tidal range is 45 foot, the second largest in the world. Potentially, it is a source of huge amounts of clean energy.
The estuary is protected by UK and European law and listed under the Ramsar convention which means it is recognised as an internationally important wetland – one of a network across the globe on which wild birds depend. It is not possible for a site to have stronger safeguards.
This does not rule out development, however, which, under certain conditions, can go ahead. Two of those conditions are that no alternative is available and that new and equally valuable wildlife habitat can be created elsewhere.
These conditions were met when the Shellhaven (London Gateway) port was given the go-ahead recently. The new sites being created in compensation for this Thames Estuary development may turn out to be even better than the original.
The chances of this if the Severn is developed are slim - land is in short supply and the estuary is huge.
And too little thought has been given to other, cheaper ways of using the Severn’s tidal power, which could generate equal amounts of electricity and take less time to build.
Rhodri Morgan, the Welsh Assembly’s First Minister, suggests the global environmental need – tackling climate change – outweighs the need to protect the local environment – the estuary - and that the massive potential of the Severn is too great a prize to ignore.
It is a great prize but there may be other ways of winning it.
Those backing the Kayapo believe the sacrifices they will have to make are not justified by the benefits of building a huge dam.
The UK government will need to decide if extensive damage to the Severn Estuary is a sacrifice worth making for construction of a hugely expensive barrage across the Severn.
It is a full seven days since the polar bear was grudgingly placed on America’s endangered species list. Protection came with the damning caveat that it should not impede development. Now, exactly 168 hours after these limited safeguards were agreed, the US government is being sued for imposing them. And guess who is doing the suing: the governor of Alaska, whose electorate just wants to keep on drilling. Experts forecast that two-thirds of polar bears will be gone by 2050 because so much Arctic ice will have melted. The remaining ice could disappear entirely within 80 years, US scientists have warned. For many years, President Bush’s administration refused to acknowledge climate change and particularly man’s role in causing it. Listing the polar bear at least suggested an acceptance by the government that temperatures were rising. But denial continues in one of the oil capitals of the world. This comes as a British company tells of the massive savings it has made for some of the world’s biggest industries by reducing their energy use. In a letter in today’s FT, the director of Sustainability and Procurement says his firm has cut customers’ costs by £930,000 in five years, by using greener equipment in buildings. Plenty more orders should soon be coming his way.
It has long been time to move on from our obsession with oil but some of us still don’t seem able. Reluctance is inevitable if your livelihood depends on oil and your politicians neither provide nor encourage alternatives.
But instead of insisting we suck our oil reserves dry then ravage untapped sources in adjacent but protected parts of Alaska - and even the south-east England’s South Downs where oil has also been found - we should be demanding our governments, and our big industries, recognise climate change not just for its dangers but also its opportunities.
The policies of today will win the next election but the elections of tomorrow will be hi-jacked by climate change. Use it or lose it, Mr President. Or so does the polar bear.
The FT letter is here
And news on the polar bear here
A report has debunked some government myths on aviation.
The Sustainable Development Commission, itself a government quango, says many of the assumptions on which ministers base their airport expansion plans, are shaky, at best.
The commission’s report calls for a new look at aviation policy especially at claims that more runways and more flights will boost the UK economy to the tune of £5 billion. Noise and air pollution have been given too little consideration, the SDC says.
The report also highlights the role of aviation in hastening climate change. Flights account for three per cent of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and seven per cent of the UK’s.
Emissions from aircraft cause more damage than gases leached on the ground however. And the explosion of air travel, likely in the next few decades, means that flights will account for about 25 per cent of UK emissions alone. We may as well turn the lights off now.
Heathrow and Stansted are not the only airports demanding the right to do more environmental damage. Luton’s application was beaten down some time ago but the protest posters remain, just in case.
And tiny Lydd, whose planning application comes under the grandiose title London Ashford International, wants its share of the spoils too. Hop on at Lydd and you’re at Le Touquet in a jiffy, a regular training venue for our brave England soccer stars. Er, no thanks.
But now we’re getting silly. No, no, not at the thought of watching England but at the thought of enlarging Lydd. This airport is next to one of Europe’s most unusual nature reserves, Dungeness, which is part of the Dungeness peninsular, a wild, eerie and unique expanse of shingle where birds, bees and bugs thrive, together with all manner of rare and fragile plants.
Some of these plants are so sensitive that they would simply keel over if any more emissions came wafting from Lydd. And then there’s all the delays when 120,000 birds get sucked into aircraft engines. And the fact that it takes ages to get to Lydd from, well, anywhere really. There can be few other airports so firmly stuck in the sticks.
The RSPB is amongst many calling for common sense when we think about bigger airports. Those making decisions reject that suggestion, with BAA doing so again today, telling the Guardian that more discussion is daft because the government will have its new runways anyway.
Sacrifices will be needed if we are to cut our emissions but some things and some places just don’t have price.
One of those places is Dungeness. One airport plan that is just plain silly, is that for tiny Lydd.
Click here for the SDC's report
There are views and there are views.
There are landscapes that stun because of their colour or their depth. There are vistas boasting immaculate reflections.
There are panoramas so striking that two eyes are too few to take them in. Tony Blair once spoke of eating the view, it was that good.
And then there are stretches of mud, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the tide.
One stretch is found in the Severn Estuary and is best seen from Newport Wetlands, a new reserve created under European law when wetlands elsewhere were lost for construction of the Cardiff barrage.
This stretch of mud is no ordinary scene, nor is it ordinary mud. Much of it is saltmarsh, highlighted by Natural England yesterday as important but disappearing wildlife habitat.
And much of it lies within the numerous Sites of Special Scientific Interest along the estuary’s banks and within the Severn Estuary Special Protection Area - a zone safeguarded by the strongest and most effective environmental law in the world.
From Newport Wetlands you can see the estuary at its best. Beyond the mud, Flatholm and Steepholm – hummocks of land poking from estuary waters – are clearly visible.
Further upstream, the estuary divides to become the rivers Usk and Wye - the routes salmon and eel take to spawning grounds.
Closer to the estuary banks, a little egret walks with poise and purpose, cautiously extending one spindly leg into a mud pool. Nearby, a grey plover, resplendent in black and silver breeding plumage, seeks out its next aquatic meal.
Some views take your breath. The appreciation of others is not so immediate, especially if much of it is mud.
It will cost £15 billion to build a 10-mile barrage across the Severn, drowning much of its saltmarshes and irreparably damaging other invaluable muddy habitats used by wading birds and wildfowl.
New sites will be created but there will be no compensation for the loss of this view. The mud of the Severn is too glorious.
You might think that God had a hand in the issue today of a new set of stamps celebrating Britain’s cathedrals. Because the timing is spot on with new life bnow being breathed into at least two of these large and lofty buildings - Lincoln and Chichester - and St Andrews Church in Worcester too. All three venues are now hosting nesting peregrine falcons. These birds were once in serious decline but are now doing relatively well thanks to a ban on the toxic pesticide DDT and a clampdown on raptor persecution, though the latter still has a long way to go. Peregrines are the world’s fastest animal – they can reach speeds in excess of 100mph when diving in pursuit of prey. They are deserving of the much-abused term, awesome. They are powerful and, like many birds of prey, imperious and menacing in a breathtaking kind of way. Their traditional nesting sites are the cliffs and ledges of exposed coasts, or inland on tall places were food is plentiful. But despite past hardships they are not that difficult to find. They can be seen swooping between the high crags of the Lake District or nonchalantly scouring the seaward side of the Isle of Wight’s lush southern downs. And now, they are in Worcester, Lincoln and Chichester too. These venues are three of the eight peregrine viewing schemes being run by the RSPB with the birds also ensconced bang in the middle of Cardiff and Manchester city centres. Hen harriers, white-tailed eagles, ospreys and red kites are other raptors featured in RSPB Aren’t Birds Brilliant! (ABB!) projects. All you’ll need is a means of getting there because when you do, you’ll find binoculars, telescopes and even nestcams laid on for the best views of these still-hounded wild birds. But be warned: you may have to wait your turn. In Worcester alone, more than 500 people are flocking daily to see the peregrines and their four chicks. The RSPB is running more than 60 ABB! schemes this year giving visitors unprecedented views of wild birds. But these fabulous creatures won’t be there for long so take the opportunity to see them while it’s there.
Click here to find the ABB! closest to you.