Help preserve land – our 'home and future' – UN urges on World Day to Combat Desertification

The UN News Centre

With hundreds of millions of people around the globe directly affected by desertification – the degradation of land ecosystems due to unsustainable farming or mining practices, or climate change – United Nations agencies have called for better management of land so that it can provide a place where individuals and communities “can build a future.” Story here.

Female elk can learn to avoid hunters with age

EurekAlert

Strategies include moving less, and favouring safer areas when near roads. Story here.

Elk in Jasper Nat'l. Park, Canada. 

PinP photo.

Catastrophe of Aral Sea shows 'men can destroy the planet,' warns UN chief Guterres

UN News Centre

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres paid a recent visit the Aral Sea – once the world's fourth largest inland sea, that has now shrunk to about a quarter of its original size due to human mismanagement  Story here.

Changes for Manitoba's hog industry would lower standards (LETTER)

(Brandon Sun,13 June)

It's a funny thing how industries that are in trouble invariably take out full-page ads in the newspapers to proclaim their virtue in search of public approval. Such is the case with Saturday's ad by the Manitoba Pork Council featuring chairman George Mathison.

Chairman Mathison, referring to the "red tape reductions" proposed by the province, emphatically proclaims that "None of the proposed changes will lower environmental standards." Come now, George - that really is a bit of a stretch.

Churchill residents fear skyrocketing costs as flooded rail line closed indefinitely

Winnipeg Free Press

First, the grain shipments shut down, shuttering the Port of Churchill.

Then the blizzards hit, dumping 60 centimetres of snow in just three days last winter and forcing town authorities to call a state of emergency. Story here.

U of M climate change study postponed due to climate change

Winnipeg Free Press

The University of Manitoba's multi-year, multi-million dollar climate change study has been put on ice for a year -- because of climate change itself. Details here.

Hog Watch Manitoba (HWM) Calls for Safer Barns After Thousands of Animals Die in Another Fire.

WINNIPEG: HWM, a citizens’ group which monitors the industry in the province, calls the blaze “horrific.” Three thousand, five hundred pigs perished when two barns burned to the ground near New Bothwell last week.

It’s just the latest in a series of similar incidents in the province that have left thousands more hogs dead over the past decade. The barns are not equipped with the same fire walls or alarm/sprinkler systems that most other buildings must have.

And HWM fears that plans by the Pallister government to remove what it calls “impractical and costly” fire prevention regulations in barn construction, will only make a bad situation even worse.How can these changes make the situation better?

 “Although the thousands of pigs that have died in barn fires are not someone’s pet, they are all sentient beings that have the capacity to suffer fear and pain” says Vicki Burns of HWM. “If there were horrific fires like this in animal shelters like humane societies, the public would not tolerate it.  We should not be tolerating this for any animal housing, whether they are cats and dogs or animals raised for agricultural production. The degree of pain experienced in a fatal fire will be excruciating for any animals”.

Janine Gibson, an organic inspector and member of HWM, says “ These barn fires do not need to happen . We have the means to provide good fire prevention in our barns, just as we do in other buildings. Let’s make this happen to offer more humane circumstances for all animals."

HWM believes that hog producers need to receive enough remuneration that they can afford to build safe, healthy barns.

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