The Save Our Bogs campaigners are celebrating this month with the news that 20 more raised bogs in the Republic will be protected as SACs (Special Areas of Conservation), according to Martin Cullen, environment minister.
Good news about bogs
In addition, 80 raised bogs are to be designated as Natural Heritage Areas under the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000. "Raised bogs take 10,000 years to grow. A man in a bulldozer can destroy one in just 10 days. At least these sites will now be saved for people to experience," says Dr Peter Foss, chairman of the Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC).
But the campaign isn't over. Send a card or buy a Wild Ireland calendar and support the IPCC's work to conserve Irish wildlife and bogs this Christmas. The IPCC gift catalogue is online at www.ipcc.ie, or visit the Enviro shop at 119 Capel Street, Dublin. Tel: 01-8722397.
New ideas on fair trade
People First - Justice in a Global Economy is the title of the fourth Annual FEASTA lecture. Stan Thekaekara, a social activist and trustee of Oxfam (from Kerala, India), has spent many years working with Adivsis, indigenous peoples, in southern India and has developed radical ideas on economics. According to FEASTA (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability), he may challenge our preconceptions about fair trade and micro-credit. The lecture is to be held in Galway tomorrow (Menlo Park Hotel, 8 p.m.); in Dublin on Monday (Davis theatre, arts block, TCD, at 7.30 p.m.); and in Cork on Tuesday (Boole 1 lecture theatre, UCC, at 8 p.m.). More details: 01-4912773/www.feasta.org
The Ecologist for Christmas
Is choosing organic food a lifestyle choice or a matter of life over death? What's in a flu jab - and what are the alternatives? Bali, bombs and backpackers - are travellers naive? Is Brazil's new president America's worst nightmare? These are just some of the topics featured in the December/January issue of The Ecologist. Non-profitmaking, the world's longest running environmental magazine covers green, social and economic issues and is available from Easons or www.theecologist.org Information on annual subscriptions - a perfect Christmas pressie for the ecologist in your life - is available from: 0044-1795414963.
Toad terror Down Under
The unspoilt wilderness of the Kakadu national park in northern Australia is under threat from a plague of poisonous cane toads, which will destroy everything in their path. The park, nearly half the size of the Netherlands and home to 340 species of birds and mammals, is "lost", says Prof Mike Tyler of Adelaide University. "Cane toads will become the most dominant form of life in a little bit of Australia that we thought was pristine." Experts fear that the amphibians will spread rapidly (the female lays up to 40,000 eggs a month) and devastate wildlife, as they have no natural predators (even freshwater crocodiles who eat the toads die). The government has provided $1 million Australian dollars to research gene technology to control the toad but conservationists say it is too little, too late.