Amazonian Wilderness

In today's Guardian there is an article with the depressing assessment that the Amazon jungle could be lost in 40 years:

"The Amazonian wilderness is at risk of unprecedented damage from an ambitious plan to improve transport, communications and power generation in the region, conservationists warned yesterday." - Read full article.

This is in addition to a recent article by the Brazil-based humanitarian aid worked Conor Foley called 'Threatening the Amazon', which lays out in some further detail some of the things that are going wrong. Meaning, in other words, that not much has changed since we attended the RSA 2006 Angus Millar Lecture where Chris Clark, President of Associazione Amazonia Onlus, told a distinguished Edinburgh audience about the extreme difficulties conservation efforts in the Amazon face. Transcript here .

The issues facing rainforests like the Amazon will be in particular focus at the next World Wilderness Congress - which will be held in South America in 2009 - including follow-up on the Resolution on Tropical Protected Areas as adopted by the 8th World Wilderness Congress.

Now you can help by getting informed. We have a suggested starting point for your reading in preparation for the next for the next World Wilderness Congress. You may also find it useful to go through some related articles from the International Journal of Wilderness:

• An Overview of the World Wilderness Congress
• The 8th World Wilderness Congress
• The 7th World Wilderness Congress - Wilderness and Human Communities

Learn more about and subscribe to the International Journal of Wilderness

Last but not least, here's on from our archive about the very first congress: Findhorn and the World Wilderness Congress 1983

Guardian: Britain's forgotten wilderness - less than an hour from Norwich

The Wilderness Foundation congratulates the RSPB on the acquisition-for-preservation of Sutton Fen. Here's an excerpt from coverage in today's Guardian:

"Walk in any direction from the middle of Sutton Fen in the Norfolk Broads and you will be lost in minutes. You may also sink to your armpits through what looks like solid land but is actually a crust of peat. You could scream but no one would hear because for nearly a mile around there is only slow-flowing water creeping between tall reeds and dense low copses of alder trees. There are no paths, fences, or sounds except for the occasional owl or bittern. It is a true British wilderness - and for its new owners, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a £1.5m Christmas present to its members."
- Read the full article on Guardian Unlimited here.
- The RSPB have some amazing pictures here.

The Wilderness Foundation works for Wilderness preservation in the UK specifically and globally through our sister organisations on other continents - We also support likeminded organisations wherever and whenever we can.

'Wild Laws' - Article in today's Guardian

Interesting article in today's Guardian on the 'Wild Law' concept:

"The term "wild law" was first coined by Cormac Cullinan, a lawyer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Put simply, it is about the need for a change in our relationship with the natural world, from one of exploitation to a more "democratic" participation in a community of other beings. If we are members of a community, Cullinan says, then our rights must be balanced against those of plants, animals, rivers and ecosystems. This means developing new laws that require the integrity and functioning of the whole Earth community to be prioritised. In a world governed by wild law, the destructive, human-centred exploitation of the natural world would be unlawful." - Full story here...

The Gaia Foundation also has an article by Cormac Cullinan, (first published in Resurgence).

This also led us to learning more about the upcoming events by the UK Environmental Law Association which may be of interest:

• Wild Law one day conference Nov 10th
• Nicholas Hurd MP will talk to the Climate Change Working Party on 23rd Nov
• Stephen Tromans will provide an update on environmental law in Bristol on 28th Nov
  - On the same day in London the newly formed Corporate Due Diligence Working Party meets.
• Talks on nature conservation will be given in Cardiff on 30th Nov.
• The Garner Lecture 2006 by Malcolm Forster will be held on 13th Dec.

Learn more about their events here: http://www.ukela.org/events.shtml