International Conservation & Development

Like the Haugheys, Evan Goldsmith, founder and owner of Hope for Women, was inspired to start his business after multiple trips to India in the 1990s. He worked on a service project in the Himalayas creating pressed-flower greeting cards with local women for a group in the U.K., and said he wanted to stay connected after moving back home. “I realized the market was growing for socially valuable products,” Goldsmith said. “Flashing forward to 2003, the Fair Trade movement was starting to grow with coffee and chocolate.”

Scientists say China must act now. The world has just two or three decades to avoid irreversible climate change, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, an energy professor at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and author of two books on pollution. “If the Chinese don’t dramatically reduce carbon emissions from coal, there’s no way we can make a dent in climate change globally in the time period that matters,” Gallagher says. Read the full story

This past week in Lima, EIA launched a new report entitled “The Laundering Machine: How Fraud and Corruption in Peru’s Concession System are Destroying the Future of its Forests”. The full report is available in both English and Spanish as PDFs posted on EIA’s homepage. In addition, we have created a digital version that contains links to many pertinent official documents, news stories, videos and other supplementary information.

When he became chief, many people wondered whether Mr. Cook, a skilled manager of Apple's operations, could ever rival the visionary influence of Mr. Jobs on Apple products. Instead, it appears Mr. Cook could make his earliest and most significant mark by changing how Apple's products are made. ''I want to give credit to Tim Cook for this,'' said Dara O'Rourke, associate professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. ''He's admitting they've got problems.''

Laura Meyerson of the University of Rhode Island works at the Institute of Botany in Pruhonice on exploring genetic qualities of a very common plant phragmatis australis.This global research project can help to develop better understanding of the invasive species. Watch the video

Pannonia Ethanol, a corn-ethanol plant in Dunafoldvar, Hungary, is now producing ethanol. Pannonia Ethanol Zrt., a special purpose subsidiary of Ethanol Europe, hired Fagen Europe LLC as the project’s design builder for the facility, which will produce up to 240 MMly (63.4 MMgy) of ethanol in central Hungary, said Eric Sievers, CEO of Ethanol Europe. Read the full story

“More with less, save the rest.” The three key concepts set forth in this phrase have been at the center of many recent domestic and international conversations about the future of agriculture. The discussion regarding the first concept follows the logic that food production will need to double by 2050 to meet demand. This will be due to an overall increase in the global population coupled with increases in the consumption of animal protein, fruits, and vegetables as the standard of living, especially in developing countries, steadily rises.

The United States and Puerto Rico account for 80% of the total value of Peruvian timber sales, said Andrea Johnson, forest campaign director of the Environmental Investigation Agency. Read the full story

The Titanic hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, but it probably didn’t hit one the size of Manhattan. As oceans warm and global ambient temperatures rise, glaciers in Greenland and ice sheets in the Antarctic are calving bigger and more numerous icebergs. One the size of Manhattan floated free from Greenland in 2010, as seen in this video.