Robber fly - Nature photographer Thomas Shahan specializes in amazing portraits of tiny insects. It isn't easy. Shahan says that this Robber Fly (Holcocephala fusca), for instance, is "skittish" and doesn't like its picture taken.

Nature by Numbers (Video)

"The Greater Akashic System" – July 15, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: Lightworkers, Intent, To meet God, Past lives, Universe/Galaxy, Earth, Pleiadians, Souls Reincarnate, Invention: Measure Quantum state in 3D, Recalibrates, Multi-Dimensional/Divine, Akashic System to change to new system, Before religion changed the system, DNA, Old system react to Karma, New system react to intent now for next life, Animals (around humans) reincarnate again, This Animal want to come back to the same human, Akashic Inheritance, Reincarnate as Family, Other Planets, Global Unity … etc.)

Question: Dear Kryon: I live in Spain. I am sorry if I will ask you a question you might have already answered, but the translations of your books are very slow and I might not have gathered all information you have already given. I am quite concerned about abandoned animals. It seems that many people buy animals for their children and as soon as they grow, they set them out somewhere. Recently I had the occasion to see a small kitten in the middle of the street. I did not immediately react, since I could have stopped and taken it, without getting out of the car. So, I went on and at the first occasion I could turn, I went back to see if I could take the kitten, but it was to late, somebody had already killed it. This happened some month ago, but I still feel very sorry for that kitten. I just would like to know, what kind of entity are these animals and how does this fit in our world. Are these entities which choose this kind of life, like we do choose our kind of Human life? I see so many abandoned animals and every time I see one, my heart aches... I would like to know more about them.

Answer: Dear one, indeed the answer has been given, but let us give it again so you all understand. Animals are here on earth for three (3) reasons.

(1) The balance of biological life. . . the circle of energy that is needed for you to exist in what you call "nature."

(2) To be harvested. Yes, it's true. Many exist for your sustenance, and this is appropriate. It is a harmony between Human and animal, and always has. Remember the buffalo that willingly came into the indigenous tribes to be sacrificed when called? These are stories that you should examine again. The inappropriateness of today's culture is how these precious creatures are treated. Did you know that if there was an honoring ceremony at their death, they would nourish you better? Did you know that there is ceremony that could benefit all of humanity in this way. Perhaps it's time you saw it.

(3) To be loved and to love. For many cultures, animals serve as surrogate children, loved and taken care of. It gives Humans a chance to show compassion when they need it, and to have unconditional love when they need it. This is extremely important to many, and provides balance and centering for many.

Do animals know all this? At a basic level, they do. Not in the way you "know," but in a cellular awareness they understand that they are here in service to planet earth. If you honor them in all three instances, then balance will be the result. Your feelings about their treatment is important. Temper your reactions with the spiritual logic of their appropriateness and their service to humanity. Honor them in all three cases.

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle

Dian Fossey's birthday celebrated with a Google doodle
American zoologist played by Sigourney Weaver in the film Gorillas in the Mist would have been 82 on Thursday (16 January 2014)

Friday, December 18, 2009

Indonesian Firm Picks Green Fuel Not Mill

The Wall Street Journal, By TOM WRIGHT

JAKARTA—PT Medco Energi, Indonesia's largest private oil-and-gas producer, has scaled back plans for a large pulp and paper mill and other forestry investments in Indonesia's remote Papua

Last year, Jakarta-based Medco, which is looking to diversify its revenues, said it was planning a 500,000 ton-per-year pulp and paper mill in Merauke district, on the southern tip of Papua, a sparsely populated California-sized Indonesian province that is covered in rainforests and home to only 2.5 million people.

The company also said it was looking for investors in the Middle East to participate in a food and biofuels project in Merauke, possibly on as much as 1 million hectares.

Those plans raised concerns among environmental groups. Until now, Papua's remote location has spared its natural forests from the destruction that paper mills and palm oil plantations have wrought on other Indonesian islands.

Medco has dropped plans for its pulp and paper mill and instead is focusing on a smaller-scale $70 million facility to produce wood pellets, a potential "green" fuel, said Aradea Arifin, the finance director of Medco's Papua operations, in an interview. It has also scaled down its food and biofuel ambitions and now plans to grow only a small amount of sugarcane.

The company is also working with Conservation International, the U.S.-based environment group, on a sustainable land-use plan for its mill that will set aside forest conservation areas inside Medco's concession.

"A pulp mill is very difficult in terms of the environment, so we changed," Mr. Arifin said in an interview.

Among other concerns, Mr. Arifin said the company wants to avoid social problems with Papuans, who use the forests for hunting and have in some cases attacked palm oil and forestry companies operating in the province. Medco also hopes its sustainable approach will allow it to get further forestry concessions from Papua's local government, whose governor, Barnabas Suebu, has declined to hand out large parcels of land to companies and says he doesn't want the province to be destroyed by rampant development like other areas in Indonesia.

Jatna Supriatna, the head of Conservation International's local office who began working with Medco last year, said he told the company's senior management that a large pulp and paper mill was going to cause "a problem with all the international NGOs" because of its impact on Merauke's eucalyptus forests. A wood pellet mill uses all parts of a tree, including branches, meaning it needs fewer inputs compared to a pulp and paper mill for the same production, Mr. Supriatna said.

Medco says it's hoping to cash in on increasing demand for wood pellets from companies in Europe and Asia that are under pressure to reduce their carbon emissions. Wood pellets are rising in popularity as a source of fuel to replace carbon dioxide-emitting coal in power stations and for heating.

Medco has teamed up with LG Corp. of South Korea, which has taken a 32% stake in Medco's Papua unit and will market the wood pellets overseas.

To be viable as a "green" fuel, Medco will need to prove that its wood pellet production doesn't lead to widespread forest destruction. Rainforests and peat lands are efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide, and their destruction through fires, forest-clearing or drainage releases the heat-trapping greenhouse gas back into the atmosphere.

The loss of rainforests accounts for about a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Despite its relatively small economy, Indonesia is the world's third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind China and the United States due to forest fires and drainage of carbon dioxide-dense peat lands, according to some estimates.

Climate change negotiators meeting in Copenhagen this week are focusing on ways a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, could compensate investors in nations like Indonesia that forego revenues by preserving forests.

Medco's Mr. Arifin said the company has hired consultants to look at how it could protect forests in return for carbon credits, which can be sold to polluters in developed countries or traded on international exchanges.

Conservation International's study of Medco's 170,000-hectare forest concession in Merauke should be completed in the next couple of months, Mr. Supriatna said. The study, which is being prepared with input from a consultant from the University of Texas-Austin, will advise Medco on which areas it can selectively log and which should be protected for environmental or social reasons.

Medco says it is waiting for the study before it begins to cut trees in its concession area but is looking at setting aside at least 70,000 hectares of the total area for conservation. It is planning to build up industrial-wood plantations on the remainder of the land it clears, which take six years to grow.

A Medco mill has begun limited operations, using wood felled to make way for its production facilities, Mr. Arifin said. It plans to produce 100,000 metric tons of wood pellets in 2010 and 300,000 tons within two years.

Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com

No comments: