Title: Luncheon: Business and sustainability
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Speaker, David James P. Leape, Director General of WWF International.
Date: 2010-04-16
Bluefin tuna (photo, ©2010 WWF/Canon Manu San Felix)
[WWF video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Atlantic bluefin tuna’s last reasonable chance for survival as a species has taken a beating: its defenders have been defeated in a critical vote at a Cites meeting in Doha, Qatar. A clear majority of nations of the Cites pact of countries, which regulates trade in endangered species, voted 18 March against a ban on bluefin tuna fishing.
The Cites head office is based in Geneva.
Gland, Switzerland-based World Wildlife Fund for Nature, which has campaigned for a ban to allow stocks to recover from over-fishing, says 72 countries in Cites voted against the ban, while 43 voted for it and 14 abstained.
Coal plant, northern Germany (©2010 Andrew Kerr and WWF-Canon)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - WWF Switzerland has filed a complaint with the European Union over the continuing support by some Swiss electricity companies of coal-based electricity production in northern Germany. Romande Energie is among several Swiss electricity suppliers who participate in the coal-based activities at Brunsbuettel in northern Germany.
The new Aminona resort would be built next to the three existing white towers
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The WWF Switzerland and the Swiss Fund for the Protection of Nature (FP) said Tuesday 8 December they have filed an appeal against the Aminona resort project near Crans-Montana in canton Valais, saying they “fear a fiasco for nature and the surrounding countryside, as well as for the region itself.”
The CHF350 million-plus plan, proposed by Aminona Luxury Resort and Village (ALRV)/Mirax, with support from the commune of Mollens, calls for 15 buildings to be constructed. Mollens has given a green light to the first phase of the project moving ahead, but environmental groups say neither the Russian developer Mirax nor the commune have given adequate assurances to a series of questions raised: the additional pressure on surrounding undeveloped areas, transport management, water supplies in this dryest part of Switzerland, energy management. For transport, WWF and the FP say the commune has provided only contradictory information, saying on the one hand public transport will be provided, and on the other, that the plans call for more than 500 parking spaces with no coordinated public transport.
No more wolf: what a relief!
Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Canton Valais angered WWF and other groups in late summer 2009 by authorizing the shooting of three wolves but in the end one of them will not be killed. The wolf in question, which had attacked sheep and, later, goats, in the Val de Dix, has not been seen in the area recently, say cantonal authorities, who say they would know if the female wolf was around, thanks to close surveillance. The shoot-to-kill order is valid only for 60 days, and the period has now ended.
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Gordon Shepherd, WWF international policy and Martin Sommerkorn, WWF Arctic research, at Geneva climate conference
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
Complete coverage of the WCC-3 by GenevaLunch
Conference is 31 August – 4 September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One-quarter of the world’s population is likely to be affected by rising ocean levels provoked by melting Arctic ice, a WWF study released 2 September shows. The Arctic is heating up at twice the rate of the rest of the Earth, the new Arctic Climate Feedbacks report shows. As a result, the level of oceans can be expected to rise by one metre by the end of the 21st century, twice as fast as current predictions suggest.
The report pulls together the most recent data covering the Arctic and its impact. It includes the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica in global sea level projections, which were not included in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2007 assessment of the Arctic, widely relied on. The addition of these areas appears likely to change temperature and precipitation patterns in Europe and North America, affecting agriculture, forestry and water supplies, the new data shows.
Photo: Marco Tedesco, WWF
The Arctic holds twice as much carbon as the rest of the world and the study indicates that as warming speeds up, carbon released by warmer soils could reach significant levels. Read more…
Wolves (image: © Klein & Hubert/WWF)
Sion, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A wolf was shot in the Val d’Illiez, canton Valais early Thursday 20 August, just a day after WWF Switzerland and Pro Natura announced they are making a legal appeal against canton Valais’s July decision to allow two wolves to be shot and a decision by Lucerne to shoot one. “We will go ahead with our appeal in the hope that, thanks to a future decision by the tribunal the wolves will be better protected in the future,” says Kurt Eichenberger, head of biodiversity for WWF Switzerland.
WWF Switzerland says the canton’s procedures for making the decision to kill is flawed.
Calanthe-yuksomnensis (image ©2009 Sudhizong Lucksom / WWF Nepal)
One of 12 new poppy species discoveries, Meconopsis tibetica (© 2009 Margaret Thome / WWF Nepal)
Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Eastern Himalayas, one of the richest and most bio-diverse areas of the world, is also one that is most threatened by global warming, according to a new report by The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), out 10 August.
Over the past 10 years, researchers have discovered an average of 35 new species a year in the region, which WWF says is on a par with other biological cauldrons such as Borneo. The Eastern Himalayas are home to a flying frog (Rhacophorus suffry), which uses its webbed feet to glide, and the world’s smallest species of deer. When first discovered, researchers thought the deer was the young of another species. It stands 60-80 cms tall and weighs 11 kg.
The region encompasses Nepal, Bhutan, northern Bengal and the three northeastern-most states of India, Assam, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as the extreme north of Burma (Myanmar).
Flying frog (image ©2009 Totul Bortamuli / WWF Nepal)
Pressures on the region include population growth, logging, mining activities and inappropriate infrastructure building, especially roads and dams.
Full report: “The Eastern Himalayas. Where worlds collide” (pdf)
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss are the largest consumers of paper goods in Europe, consuming 21 kilos of cleaning and hygienic paper products per person in 2007, says the Swiss WWF. The ecology group’s evaluation of stores in Switzerland gave 9 out 10 stores a mark of “insufficient” in their attempts to use and promote recycled paper goods.
Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss chapter of WWF, the nature and wildlife group, is offering Swiss schoolchildren three dates, 13, 14 and 15 May, where they can learn about rivers: how to measure their state of health, the flora and fauna that are part of the rivers’ systems.
Gland, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – There’s relatively good news today about salmon, gorillas and sturgeon, according to WWF Switzerland, in a press release (Fre) that takes stock of the world wildlife situation at the end of 2008. Among the losers, however, are the Swiss brown bear and red tuna.
Switzerland (Le Temps and Le Matin/ats, Fre) – Rega is flying high after winning the distinction of being the Swiss company the most appreciated by the public, according to the results of the annual survey done by IHA-GfK, "Business Reflector 2007." The air lifesaving company came in ahead of Lindt & Spruengli, the chocolate-makers, with the 3,500 people surveyed. Swiss took off again, coming up 25 places in the rankings to number 52. For sustainable development the WWF won top honours, ahead of Unicef.
