Articles by Geoff Dabelko

Putin cracks down on environmental orgs

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking an increasingly dim view of environmental NGO activity, whether from within Russia or from neighboring Baltic or Nordic neighbors. In rhetoric eerily similar to what we hear in this country, Putin rails against ecological objections holding up development projects. Going a step further, Putin's government is criminalizing more and more environmental data-gathering and harassing Russian NGO activists. Putin's latest warning "against the financing of political activity by any channel" is cited in an August 2 Agence France Presse story. AFP says "the warning came amid a hardening official stance in Moscow toward non-governmental organisations -- a policy, analysts say, that reflects Kremlin worry about the influence of foreign-funded organisations in the peaceful revolutions that shook Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine last year."

If you are interested in a good news-clipping listserv on Russian environmental issues, subscribe to the Russian Environmental Digest Files through the Transboundary Environmental Information Agency, which focuses on the Baltics and Russia.

Wangari on a tightrope

The Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai is walking a tightrope on evictions of poor squatters from Kenya's few remaining forests. Over 50,000 have recently been forced out of the woods, often with little explanation and guns at their backs.

Maathai, who won the peace prize for protecting Kenya's forests from the plundering cronies of then-President Moi, now serves as deputy minister of environment in the very government doing the evicting. Read here where she supports the necessity of the expulsions to save what little remains of Kenya's forests, while condemning the way it is being done.

Grist coverage of her winning the Nobel Peace Prize is here.

Another voice from the global South criticizes the tone deafness of Western aid orgs

Forgive me for highlighting a piece that does not explicitly tackle environmental issues. But this Washington Post op-ed on foreign assistance, by former Eritrean finance minister Gebreselassie Yosief Tesfamichael, contains lessons for conservationists, if we choose to hear them.

Sewage in the kitchen?

Well, perhaps just the methane from the sewage, to cook our food.

This vision, swinging dramatically across the olfactory spectrum, is part of sustainability architect William McDonough's plan for seven new Chinese cities. The Chinese government has taken McDonough's book Cradle to Cradle on as policy for what he calls the "Next City." Read more at BBC.