USA: NOFA Summer Conference

Source: Northeast Organic Farming Association

The NOFA Summer Conference is the largest annual conference on organic growing in the Northeast of the USA, NOFA reports. The annual summer conference is expected to draw over 1200 attendees from across the entire Northeast region this year. It is hosted by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and will take place from 10 to 12 August 2012. NOFA Summer Conference attendees register for a weekend of keynote speeches, over 225 workshops, a country fair, a farmers' market, over 100 exhibitors and vendors, a children's conference, a teen conference, live entertainment and silent auction. 

Workshop topics for 2012 include various topics like alternative energy and the environment; animals, crops, farm economics and management; farming and the community; food and family; food and farm education; food preservation and cooking; politics and policy; practical skills; soil and fertility; and urban agriculture. Most workshops are held in and around the UMass Amherst campus. 

The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) is a community including farmers, gardeners, landscapers and consumers working to educate members and the general public about the benefits of local organic systems based on complete cycles, natural materials, and minimal waste for the health of individual beings, communities and the planet.

Italia: los procesadores orgánicos aumentó en un 1,3% en 2011

Fuente: Oneco

En Italia, 48.269 operadores estaban trabajando de acuerdo a las directrices orgánicas en 2011, Oneco informes. 37.905 de ellos fueron los productores de manera exclusiva, 6.165 eran procesadores (incluyendo empresas dedicadas a actividades de comercio minorista), 3.906 fueron los productores y elaboradores, 63 eran los importadores en exclusiva, y 230 fueron los importadores que también estaban produciendo o procesamiento.En comparación con los datos correspondientes a 2010, este significa un aumento de los operadores de 1,3% , el sistema italiano de Información Nacional de Agricultura Orgánica SINABinformes. Los análisis de SINAB se basan en los datos suministrados al Ministerio italiano de Políticas Agrícolas, Alimentarios y Forestales por parte de los organismos de control que operaban en Italia el 31 de diciembre de 2011. ( Gráfico: Evolución de la tierra orgánica y los operadores a partir de 1990 a 2011 )

El área agrícola en Italia, en la conversión o totalmente convertida a la agricultura orgánica, ascendió a 1,096,889 hectáreas, una disminución de alrededor de un 1, 5 por ciento respecto al año anterior. La mayor parte de la tierra orgánica se dedica a los cereales, forrajes y pastos, seguido por los olivares. Como en años anteriores, la mayoría de las fincas se encuentra en Sicilia y Calabria, mientras que la mayoría de los procesadores se puede encontrar en Emilia-Romaña, Lombardía y Véneto. Cuando se comparan los datos de la producción ganadera con los datos del año anterior, esta muestra un aumento sustancial en el número de cerdos, ovejas, cabras y aves de corral.

Key theme decided for BioFach 2013: Shared Values. Action for a Future World

• Focus on shared values as basis of global organic sector
• Key topics: cooperation, value chain and the conflict between regionality and globalization

BioFach, the World Organic Trade Fair, gathers representatives from the entire organic sector in Nürnberg once a year. The next time will be from 13–16 February 2013, when international organic players help to shape the market, organic movement and policy for a future world. At BioFach and Vivaness 2012, 2,420 exhibitors – 204 of them at the Trade Fair for Natural Personal Care and Wellness – presented their products to the 40,315 trade buyers from 130 nations. The focus at the next edition is on the organic sector as a global family. This will deal with the importance of shared values, fair action, fair and transparent value chains and variety through regionality and globalization.

 

The key theme for BioFach is designed by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) as the international patron of BioFach, the German Federation of the Organic Food Industry (BÖLW) as national supporting organization, and NürnbergMesse together with exhibitors and visitors at the world’s leading exhibition. 

Claus Rättich, Member of the Management Board of NürnbergMesse: “At the next BioFach, the international sector will discuss what requirements are necessary for sustainable and future-proof management. The main attention will be devoted to the question of how the organic sector can contribute even more to a better world for living in through increased cooperation and solidarity. This key aspect smoothly continues last year’s main theme of sustainability. We are therefore taking up an issue that affects all market players and their services, and this over all stages of the whole value chain – from field to fork! So it is only logical to put this on the agenda of all players at the sector’s annual gathering. We look forward to stimulating and inspiring discussions!” 

From shared values to actionDr. Alexander Gerber, General Manager of BÖLW: “A common understanding of the fundamental principles of sustainable agriculture, processing methods that preserve values, and fair trade provide a stable foundation for the organic movement and also determine its strength. Values are an evolved self-conception and at the same time a challenge. They must be continuously examined and improved in the conflict between ethics and economy.” Markus Arbenz, Executive Director of IFOAM: “The organic sector acts linked by the whole spectrum of the players’ shared values and goals, for example between countries, cultures, markets, organizations, professions and products. These values are practised and ‘traded’ with every product – but also on platforms like the world’s leading exhibition BioFach. Value development, information, inspiration and motivation become more important. This strengthens the common features and effectiveness of actions for the future.”

The key theme of BioFach 2013 has three main facets: cooperation, value chain and the conflict between regionality and globalization The shared values practised form the basis for all these aspects. 

Fair action and cooperationSector representatives like IFOAM and BÖLW are agreed: trading needs partners. If their needs are considered by all concerned, partnerships and cooperations are created for the benefit of all – also as a requirement for individual success. It is a matter of activating these between producers, processing and trading stages, consumers, research and consulting organizations, certifiers and service providers – regionally, between North and South and large and small, just as much as globally.

Value chainFair relationships between the persons involved over all stages of the value chain are a necessary requirement for a secure future and sustainable management from an ecological, economic and cultural viewpoint. Dr. Alexander Gerber (BÖLW): “Increased cooperation and solidarity in the global organic sector contribute to making the world a better place to live in. It is a matter of ensuring transparency and traceability over the entire value chain at the same time. This is essential for security and for the ethical and ecological assessability of the products, and therefore for consumer trust too.”

Regionality and globalization in the international organic marketMarkus Arbenz (IFOAM): “Regional economic cycles have always been a guiding principle for the international organic movement. At the same time, social and economic developments at local level are often first made possible by global trade. Internationality also stands for variety. Discussions at BioFach will look at how the ecological optimization of value chains can be reconciled with global networking. We also face global challenges that call for global solutions. We live on the same planet – only globally coordinated action can secure its survival. This is what the organic community of values stands for.”

NATURE | NEWS

Electronic sensor rivals sensitivity of human skin

Devices inspired by beetle wings could give robots a more nuanced sense of touch.

• Katherine Bourzac

29 July 2012

When sandwiched together, two layers of tiny hairs can sense pressure, shear and torsion.  Scale bar, 1µm.

FROM REF 1

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A flexible electronic sensor made from interlocking hairs can detect the gentle steps of a ladybird and distinguish between shear and twisting forces, just as human skin can. It can also be strapped to the wrist and used as a heart-rate monitor.

The sensor's design, described today in Nature Materials1, was inspired by beetle wing-locking structures, says Kahp-Yang Suh, an engineer at Seoul National University. When some beetles are resting, a row of hairs on their wings locks into an array of hairs on their body through a type of static attraction called van der Waals' forces. In Suh’s sensors, the 'hairs' are sheets of polymer fibres that are 100 nanometres in diameter and one micrometre long, and coated with metal to make them electrically conductive. When the sheets are sandwiched together, the nanohairs are attracted to one another and locked in, just like the beetle hairs. The device is then wired up so that an electrical current can be applied, and covered in a layer of soft, protective polymer.

When the sensor sheet is pressed, twisted or brushed, the squishy, metal-coated hairs change position, generating changes in the sensor’s electrical resistance. The design is sensitive to pressures of just five pascals — gentler than the lightest of touches. By analysing how the resistance changes in response to mechanical stress and then recovers when the stress is removed, Suh and his colleagues can distinguish between three types of mechanical strain: pressure, which comes straight down on the sensor; shear, a frictional slide along the surface; and torsion, a twisting motion. “We can decouple these three signals,” says Suh.

Human skin can distinguish between these types of strain, but most artificial sensors cannot. “Sensing shear and torsion is difficult,” says Zhenan Bao, a materials scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who is developing other flexible strain sensors. Other sensors detect only the total applied force, they can't say anything about its direction, says Suh. The methods for teasing out the nature of the strain from the electrical readings in Suh’s sensors need some work, says Bao, but getting this type of information from a flexible sensor is unique.

Touchy subject

Such subtle tactile input would be very useful for robots designed to interact with people, says Matei Ciocarlie, a scientist at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park, California. Cameras can provide a lot of information about the environment, but sometimes they get blocked, and they tend to get overloaded with information. Tactile sensors, however, collect data only at the point of contact and cannot be blocked.

“Skin has been an overlooked part of robotics”, says Ciocarlie, because it poses such a challenging problem: in addition to being robust, sensitive and flexible, it needs to be made in very large sheets. Suh says that it should be simple and inexpensive to make large sheets of his sensor by making large moulds.

Electronic skin also needs high spatial resolution to pinpoint where on the surface the pressure is being applied. Suh’s group demonstrated their device's resolution by using an 8-by-5 centimetre sensor network made up of 64 pixels to track the meandering of two ladybirds along its surface. They also recorded the path of a bouncing water droplet and showed that the sensor sheets could measure someone’s pulse when strapped to his or her wrist. Suh says that his group is now talking to a health-care company about developing heart monitors using his material.

Studying Evolution With an Eye on the Future

Jane Charlesworth

GLIMPSING THE FUTURE Sinéad Collins studies evolution in marine algae.

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

Published: July 30, 2012

Charles Darwin came to many of his ideas by observing the wild creatures of South America. The biologist Sinéad Collins elaborates on his work by actually creating evolution in her laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Collins, 36, sets up experiments to uncover evolution’s basic rules. She then uses the information to help work on solutions to contemporary environmental problems likeglobal warming and marine acidification.

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We spoke for two hours at last winter’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia, and then again last month by telephone. An edited and condensed version of the conversations follows.

When people get algae in their swimming pools or their ponds, they do their best to get rid of it. Why do you deliberately grow it in Scotland?

Oh, my gosh! We grow it only for the best of reasons. In my lab, we do something called “experimental evolution.” That’s a way of trying to figure out how evolution works by observing it. We do that by taking very small creatures — unicellular green algae — and breeding hundreds and thousands of generations of them in different environments.

With ocean warming and acidification proceeding at an ever-growing pace, we grow the algae in high CO2 environments — which is something like what a future ocean might be like. We then say, “Hello, algae, tell us how you are different.” And from this we can get a projection of how they might be in 200 years. It’s important to know because microbes such as algae are the starting point of the marine food chain.

Of course, we’re doing this in a laboratory. So it’s a super-simplified version of a future ocean. We’re not trying to replicate reality — the actual ocean is a complex and turbulent environment. We’re more trying to figure out the rules reality plays by.

Is experimental evolution new?

No. In the 1880s, there was a guy named the Rev. William Dallinger, and he did an experiment that could be published today — it was that cool. He took microbes that could live only at temperatures under 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and over several years evolved them to live at 158 degrees!

What is new is applying evolution to current problems. I first came to the field in the 1990s while studying biochemistry at McGill. I was volunteering at a gay telephone hot line in Montreal. At the time there were all these super-strains of H.I.V. emerging. That got me interested in how viruses evolve because retroviruses like H.I.V. have this incredibly fast mutation rate.

That was part of what pushed me to do my doctorate in experimental evolution. Right away, I could see how experimental evolution was creating tools for understanding the effects of climate change. Who survives in a warmed-up environment? How will they be different from their ancestors? Dallinger’s microbes, after years of selection, couldn’t survive at 68 degrees Fahrenheit anymore.

Today I do Dallinger-ish experiments in my own lab. I take the results to an institute in Germany where I help their oceanographers plan their own experiments in real marine environments.

What have your algae taught you so far?

Let me tell you about one experiment we did. There are people who say that all the carbon we’re putting into the seas might not have a devastating effect. They posit that it won’t lead to an over-acidified marine environment because microbes will eat all that extra carbon, store it and spit it out as oxygen.

At first glance, this makes sense because many microorganisms are photosynthesizers. They gobble up carbon, store it, use it like food for growth and transform it into oxygen.

So to test this, we grew algae in the lab in a high CO2 environment, and 1,000 generations later we saw some really weird syndromes. Some of the algae, if you gave them more CO2, weren’t storing it anymore. Others photosynthesized many times faster than any of their ancestors had, though they were no longer able to use the extra carbon to become bigger.

What do you make of this?

That this hope that ocean plants will efficiently sop up all the extra CO2 may be overly optimistic.

We did another experiment where we found that genetically identical algae evolved differently when they are part of a community than when alone. In fact, the algae that evolved the most on their own and were most adapted to the new environment got driven to extinction when they were put together with algae that had evolved in a community.

Out West, ‘Black Fingers of Death’ Offer Hope Against an Invader

Michael Friberg for The New York Times

MISSION Susan Meyer, an ecologist, in a field of cheatgrass in Skull Valley, Utah.

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: July 30, 2012

SKULL VALLEY, Utah — The black spears, no longer than a baby’s eyelashes, protruded in a row from the seeds that nodded on the end of the grass stalk. Susan Meyer held the cheatgrass stem with one hand and pointed them out with the other.

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Aggressive Weed

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Michael Friberg for The New York Times

EXPANSION A dirt road runs through a field of cheatgrass in Skull Valley, Utah.

“These little marching armies of toothpicks here,” Dr. Meyer said, “that’s it. That’s the black fingers of death.” Her work these days is centered on figuring out how this fungus, which looks like a miniature mohawk haircut, does its lethal work on cheatgrass, perhaps the most disruptive invasive plant in the country — and how to help the tiny spears do more of it.

Black fingers, the fungus with the horror-movie handle, is the new artillery that wildland biologists are firing at cheatgrass, a weed that has remade the landscape of the Intermountain West. It has eliminated large concentrations of sagebrush and other native shrubs and perennial grasses by always being first.

It germinates first, uses available moisture first, burns first and, finally, is the first to reappear in damaged landscapes.

“Cheatgrass is a very insidious kind of biotic virus,” saidStephen Pyne, a Western fire historian at Arizona State University. “It takes over and rewrites the operating system. Because it grows earlier, it can burn earlier,” then in its regrowth “drive off all the other competitors. That makes for a complete overthrow of the system.”

Mike Styler, head of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said simply: “It’s changed the entire ecology of the West.”

But the black fingers of death — Pyrenophora semeniperda — may help restoration ecologists like Dr. Meyer reclaim some beachheads in the vast swath of land already conquered by cheatgrass.

How much territory has become home to only a monoculture of cheatgrass, or is at least dominated by it? Estimates have been as high as 60 million acres, though most scientists now put the total at perhaps one-third of that. What is of greater concern is how much it could spread, and how fire cycles have changed since cheatgrass made its way here from Europe, probably carried in bags of wheat seeds. No one is certain when it arrived, but farmers were complaining about it more than 100 years ago.

An unpublished paper by Jennifer K. Balch, of the Penn State geography department, shows that fires occurred four times as often in cheatgrass landscapes in the West as in all other types of ground cover combined. The paper, which has been accepted by the journal Global Change, says that cheatgrass was a factor in nearly 25 percent of the 50 largest Western fires in the 1990s.

For decades, scientists have been trying to stop its advance, to little effect. Now Dr. Meyer and a few other scientists are exploring biological warfare. The new weapons, all fungi, are being tested here in Skull Valley, a place so thick with cheatgrass that a stubbly, bleached-blond carpet of it stretches to the hills on all sides.

The experiments depend on a fine-grained knowledge of the weed’s behavior. James McIver, of Oregon State University, who heads an interagency federal research effort on restoring sagebrush ecosystems, explained that cheatgrass — so called by farmers whose wheat yields dropped when it gained a foothold — “gets into interstices in the sagebrush plant, grows right under the sagebrush.”

Cattle, Dr. McIver said, prefer native perennial grasses, eating them when possible and leaving cheatgrass alone. In addition, said Rory Reynolds of Utah’s natural resources department, the plant’s natural rhythms give it an advantage in arid regions. Its seeds germinate in the fall instead of spring, and it begins to grow as the snows melt, getting to the precious moisture long before native plants and shrubs.

This is a crucial advantage in the high desert areas of Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington, where native plants depend on scarce water resources later in the spring. It is less of a factor in moisture-rich areas to the east. Cheatgrass grows throughout the contiguous United States, but poses no threat to native vegetation outside the arid West.

FAO destaca papel de mundo académico en lucha contre el hambre

30 de julio, 2012 - El director general de la FAO subrayó hoy la necesidad de que el mundo académico se involucre en la lucha contra el hambre mediante la investigación de la pobreza rural y el negocio de la alimentación y la agricultura de los productores de pequeña escala.

Durante su participación en el Congreso Mundial de Sociología Rural, que se celebra en Lisboa, José Graziano da Silva afirmó que uno de los grandes desafíos de la actualidad es utilizar los conocimientos académicos para entender y mejorar la vida de las poblaciones rurales de todo el mundo.

“Y para ello tenemos que ver la realidad fuera de los muros de la universidad”, apuntó.

En este contexto, pidió a los académicos que desempeñen el papel que les corresponde y citó las inversiones en la agricultura a gran escala y el acaparamiento de tierra como un área de gran importancia política que las universidades podrían investigar.

Agregó que otro motivo de preocupación académica debería ser la forma de integrar a los pequeños campesinos en las cadenas agrícolas y alimentarias.

El mundo académico debe estudiar la cuestión de la gobernanza del sector de la alimentación y la agricultura, tanto a nivel global como local, y cómo lograr una distribución justa de los beneficios, dijo Graziano.

Recordó que para que más gente disfrute de una alimentación sana, basada en alimentos frescos, será necesario reducir los costos de transporte y de almacenamiento, y también el desperdicio y la pérdida de alimentos.

New flu virus found in seals concerns scientists

By Matt McGrathScience reporter, BBC World Service

Scientists in the United States have identified a new strain of influenza in harbour seals that could potentially impact human and animal health.Continue reading the main story

Harbour seals in New England were found to be infected with the new strain

The H3N8 flu has been associated with the deaths of harbour seals in New England last year.

Researchers say the virus may have evolved from a type that had been circulating in birds.

They say the discovery highlights the potential for pandemic flu to emerge from unexpected sources.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We need to be very nimble in our ability to identify and understand the potential risks posed by new viruses from unexpected source”Dr Anne MosconaWeill Cornell Medical College

Researchers were puzzled by the mysterious deaths from pneumonia of 162 harbour seals around the coast of New England last year.

Autopsies on five of the marine mammals indicate that they died from a type of H3N8 influenza A virus that is closely related to a strain circulating in North American birds since 2002.

One of authors of the research paper is Prof Ian Lipkin, from Columbia University in the US. He is a celebrated virus hunter who in the past has helped identify West Nile virus and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). He told the BBC that finding this flu virus in seals was an interesting "new jump".

"It's something that's been circulating for a while in birds, but we've not had this sort of die off relating to this virus in the past. As we've looked at it in some detail, we've found there have been mutations in this virus which enable it to bind to both bird receptors for flu as well as mammalian receptors for flu."

Cause for concern

As well as mutating to live in both animals and birds the scientists say this flu has evolved to make it more likely to cause severe symptoms. The virus also has the ability to target a protein found in the human respiratory tract.

Dr Anne Moscona of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City edited the report and says that the new virus is a worry.

"There is a concern that we have a new mammalian-transmissible virus to which humans haven't yet been exposed. It's a combination we haven't seen in disease before."

One of the big concerns for Prof Lipkin is that seals are acting as a mixing vessel for viruses in a way that has previously happened in pigs.

"What was interesting about this is the seals are acting as an intermediary - they have receptors for both bird flu viruses and well as mammalian flu viruses, so you have a host in which this virus can adapt, evolve and become more mammalian in phenotype and more capable of causing disease in mammals.

"That's when we really need to be concerned that it's going to be spreading into humans."

The scientists who examined the dead seals had not suspected that an influenza virus was the cause of the die off. The finding surprised them and they argue that it highlights the fact that a pandemic influenza could emerge from a number of different routes.

"Flu could emerge from anywhere," said Dr Moscona, "and our readiness has to be much better than we previously realised. We need to be very nimble in our ability to identify and understand the potential risks posed by new viruses from unexpected sources."

The report is published in the journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Which airline is the most bike-friendly?

We negotiate the major UK airlines' minefield of rules, weight limits, and hidden charges so you can just enjoy the cycling

Packing a bike for travel. Photograph: Philip Gatward/Getty Images

I recently booked return flights for myself and my bike from Edinburgh to Malaga. The experience – which began online but had to be completed via premium rate phone calls to a "customer service" centre in South Africa and a mysterious additional fee of £12 – left me wishing I'd taken the train and ferry instead.

Negotiating the minefield of rules, weight limits, and "additional" or even hidden charges imposed by airlines can be as exhausting as the cycling itself. Having endured the suffering on your behalf, here is what you can currently expect when booking your bike via the websites of the major UK airlines:

EasyJet

This airline actually offers the most generous weight allowance for bikes, but then goes and spoils it all by stating in its rules: "No other item can be carried in the bike box/bag, ie clothing."

Charges before you even get to the bike: £9 "admin fee" per booking, plus "2.5 % surcharge (min £4.95) on credit card bookings."

Cost per bike per one-way flight: £25

Weight allowance: 32kg

Rules: Must be packed in a "bike box or bag. No other items can be carried, ie clothing." When I asked EasyJet the reason for this, they replied: "This meets handling health and safety requirements."

Ryanair

By far the most expensive, though its website is the only one that lets you know if and how many spaces are available for bikes on your flight.

Charges before you even get to the bike: "Admin fee" of £6 per passenger, per one-way flight, unless you pay with a pre-paid Mastercard or Ryanair cash passport.

Cost per bike per one way flight: £50

Weight allowance: 30kg.

Rules: Must be "contained in protective box or bag."

Monarch

Britain's largest independent charter airline also operates an extensive network of scheduled flights, mainly to holiday destinations. Though the number of UK airports it operates from is limited, it charges the lowest of all "no-frills" airlines for bikes. If you can't find the right section on their website, bikes are lumped together with "carpet bowls and surfboards". The following applies to its scheduled flights:

Charges before you even get to the bike: 4% surcharge (minimum £5) on credit card bookings.

Cost per bike per one way flight: £19.99

Weight allowance: 20kg.

Rules: Very polite: "Please make every effort to protect your bicycle – we recommend the use of a bicycle bag." Tyres should be deflated.

British Airways

Bikes go free as part of your normal checked-in allowance. You don't even have to inform the airline in advance. The problem for me was it would have meant a two-hour stopover in Gatwick.

Charges before you even get to the bike: Credit card surcharge of £4.50 per passenger.

Cost per bike per one way flight: Free

Weight allowance: 23kg.

Rules: Must be packed in "a recognised bicycle bag" and tyres deflated.

Jet2.com

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the part of the Jet2.com booking process that resembles the ninth circle of hell, I'd already had my credit card relieved of nearly £200. Otherwise I would have happily taken my business elsewhere. You can only book your bike by telephoning a number that costs 10p per minute.

Charges before you even get to the bike: Booking fee of 3.6% (minimum £4.99) on all bookings except those made with Visa Electron. Additional credit card surcharge of another 3.6 %.

Cost per bike per one way flight: £30. Plus £6 each way "drop off" fee, even though this is not mentioned on the website under "Outsize Items and Their Associated Charges".

Weight allowance: 20kg.

Rules: Must be "wrapped in stiff cardboard".

• Trevor Ward is the travel editor of Bikesoup.cc

Campaigners dismayed as controversial Powys pylon route revealed

Network of more than 100 pylons serving windfarms in mid-Wales will travel through Vyrnwy valley

• Patrick Barkham
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 July 2012 13.30 BST
• Jump to comments (33)

Meifod in the Vyrnwy valley, Wales, the route for new pylons that service windfarms. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

Campaigners have vowed to continue their fight against onshore wind farms in mid-Wales after the National Grid selected the route for high-voltage pylons along the picturesque Vyrnwy valley.

The pylons and a major new substation at Cefn Coch in Powys will connect the proposed windfarms to the high voltage electricity network in Shropshire using a combination of overhead lines and underground cables.

National Grid said it had listened to concerns that the Vyrnwy valley was particularly sensitive to an overhead line and is considering an alternative route that would skirt part of the valley and bypass the historic village of Meifod, where opposition is particularly strong. Putting the cables underground in the Vyrnwy valley is believed to be too difficult in an area that regularly floods.Preferred route of the mid-Wales pylons

Jonathan Wilkinson, chairman of Montgomeryshire Against Pylons, said campaigners were "disappointed but not surprised" by the route chosen by National Grid.

"If they wanted to choose a route to maximise opposition, they've chosen it. If they wanted a fight, they've certainly got one now," he said.

Up to 500 local people are expected to gather at the site of the proposed substation tonight to demonstrate their opposition to the plans but Wilkinson said efforts would now focus on blocking the proposals for six major windfarms in mid-Wales.

The National Grid has said that if these windfarms are not constructed then the substation and the new pylon route will not be built.

Two of the windfarms will go to a public inquiry next year with four other proposals certain to be rejected by Powys council, which is controlled by anti-windfarm independents.

These four proposals could be included in a single public inquiry, which would be the focus of major popular opposition in mid-Wales. A vocal majority in the sparsely populated region are opposed to both the wind farms and the pylons, likening it to the flooding of the valleys to supply water to English cities in previous decades.

Jeremy Lee, lead project manager for National Grid said: "We will carry on listening to local views and these will play an important role as our plans progress. We understand people have concerns about overhead lines, but where they are used, we will work hard to reduce any visual effects by routing the line carefully and using appropriate pylon designs which could include the new T-pylon."

It will take at least three years in planning before work begins on the substation and cables in Powys. Ultimately, the fate of mid-Wales' pre-industrial beauty lies with the Department of Energy and Climate Change – and any further cuts to the current subsidy regime for onshore wind.

Wilkinson admitted the latest cut to the subsidy regime for onshore wind"was not enough" to place the mid-Wales schemes in doubt but he hoped the government would make further cuts when renewable funding is reviewed in 12 months' time.

While many environmental groups are in favour of onshore wind, Montgomeryshire and Shropshire Wildlife Trusts have declared their opposition to the large-scale projects like those in mid-Wales. "The impact on the area's wildlife could be devastating," said the trusts in a joint statement last year, questioning the wisdom of treating wind poweras the primary form of renewable energy and concentrating mega-farms in areas far from demand.

They also pointed out that "mitigation measures" taken by wind developments to compensate for loss of species and habitats had been a "widespread failure" so far.

Europe looks to open up Greenland for natural resources extraction

Melting of icy surface opens up possibility of extracting rare earth metals and gemstones, but many fear it could destroy the Arctic

• Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 July 2012 11.00 BST
• Jump to comments (88)

European commission chairman, Jose Manuel Barroso, (right) and Greenland prime minister, Kuupik Kleist. The EU sees potential in a massive opening up of mining operations across the world's biggest island. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Europe is looking to open a new frontier in the ever more urgent quest for new natural resources – the pristine icy wastes of Greenland.

Oil and gas have been the focus of exploitation so far – but the EU sees just as much potential in a massive opening up of mining operations across the world's biggest island, according to Antonio Tajani, the European commission's vice-president and one of the most powerful politicians in the union. He called the move "raw material diplomacy".

Latest satellite data reveal that 97% of the surface of the Greenland ice sheet underwent surface melting over four exceptionally warm days in July, indicating natural resources will become more available for extraction in the coming decades.

The potential gold rush is being welcomed by some in Greenland, but has raised fears of environmental damage, pollution and despoliation across the Arctic that could destroy one of the world's last wildernesses.

Tajani said: "Greenland is hugely important in terms of natural resources, it has vast opportunities. We are currently working very hard with the prime minister of Greenland on this – we are working on our own agreement with Greenland on raw materials."

He said: "This is raw material diplomacy. We have allies working on this worldwide."

Greenland's government is keen to exploit the island's natural wealth in order to alleviate some of the serious poverty and social problems that blight the indigenous population.

Henrik Stendal, of the Greenland government's mineral extraction department, told the Guardian: "The government would like to have another source of income – currently there is just fishing, and a little from tourism, so this is a big opportunity for us. These explorations can be done sensitively, we believe."

Only one company is currently operating a productive mine in Greenland, producing gold. But at least five are in the advanced stages of setting up new mines, and more than 120 sites are being explored. Greenland is thought to contain vast mineral wealth, including rare earth metals, gemstones and iron ore.

As competition from developing world pushes up price of energy, metals, minerals and other raw materials, finding new sources of supply is at a premium – putting densely populated Europe at a disadvantage, with little opportunity to expand its oil and gas supplies or mining operations.

But Greenland – with strong historical ties to the EU through Denmark, though the island now has home rule – represents a vast and largely untapped resource. Drilling for oil in Greenland's waters is now at the exploratory stage, having been impractical until recent advances in deep sea drilling. Mining has also been all but impossible across most of the country, which is covered in a 150m thick sheet of ice except for a few coastal strips, but melting ice and new techniques are likely to bring more of the region's potential mineral resources within reach in the coming years.

But Europe may face competition. China is already ahead; one of the most advanced metals mining projects in Greenland is nominally owned by London Mining, a UK company, but most of the finance and direction comes from China. Other countries are also eyeing the prize – although Greenland's historical ties are mainly with Europe, it is geographically close to the US and Canada.

Tajani's aggressive push into the Arctic puts him on a potential collision course with Greenpeace, the global environmental pressure group. Greenpeace recently opened up a new campaign focusing on the threats to the Arctic – one of the last places on earth where the industrial revolution and exploitation of natural resources have yet to penetrate. As part of the campaign they closed 74 UK Shell petrol stations in protest at the company's moves to drill for oil in the Arctic.

Jon Burgwald, an Arctic expert at Greenpeace, said that mining operations can bring pollution and destruction: "There could be some very harsh environmental consequences."

Mikkel Myrup, chair of the Greenlandic environmental campaigning group Akavaq, said that dealing with waste and "tailings" from the mines would be a key concern, as well as handling the toxic chemicals that are used in some forms of mining. "Mining does not have the same risks as oil drilling, but mining can be very hazardous to the environment. It's a real worry, and we don't think that the Greenlandic government has the capabilities to regulate this in the way that's needed – they can't stand up to these multinational companies. The public haven't been given the full picture," he said from his office in Nuuk, Greenland's only town of any size, with 15,000 inhabitants.

Burgwald also warned of the potential social consequences. "What happens when you have [scores of] Chinese workers living next to a small town of indigenous people?"

Greenpeace has already succeeded in delaying attempts by Cairn Energy to establish oil and gas drilling operations in the Arctic seas. Activists have more such protests in their sights. Burgwald said that if there was damage or prospective damage from mines in Greenland, they too would attract similar actions. "We would certainly oppose it if it wasn't being done right."

He did not rule out mining in Greenland altogether, if done in a sustainable manner, but said that current plans were unclear and Greenland's government would need substantial help in order to set up the right standards that would avoid the dangerous consequences. There was little sign of such help being forthcoming yet, he said.

El Parlamento Europeo pide una investigación preliminar sobre el plan 'Madrid Depura'

Madrid, 31 jul (EFEverde).- La Comisión de Peticiones del Parlamento Europeo ha solicitado a la Comisión Europea que realice una "investigación preliminar" sobre un proyecto del plan 'Madrid Depura' que en parte discurrirá a través de una zona de Red Natura del municipio de Valdemoro.

La Comisión ha aceptado a trámite la queja que la formación política Equo registró el pasado mes de febrero sobre el proyecto de suministro de agua de riego con agua reutilizable de Valdemoro, aprobado en diciembre de 2009 y enmarcado en el Plan de Depuración y Reutilización de Agua de la Comunidad de Madrid 2005-2020, y que en su opinión vulnera la legislación ambiental.

Por ello, Equo solicitó a la Comisión de Peticiones que la Comisión Europea tomase medidas para impedir la "inminente agresión" ecológica a la zona, en la que se instalarían conductos de agua potable, electricidad y agua reutilizadas a lo largo de dos kilómetros y medio.

La infraestructura, según Equo, "supone una agresión a la integridad de la Red Natura 2000", ya que "incidirá" directamente sobre el Lugar de Importancia Comunitaria 'Vegas, cuestas y páramos del sureste' y la Zona de Especial Protección para las Aves 'Cortados y cantiles de los ríos 'Jarama y Manzanares'.

En su escrito, Equo explicó que "las tuberías de una parte del proyecto discurren por el valle del arroyo de la Cañada, en el interior de la Red Natura 2000", sin que exista la "preceptiva evaluación ambiental" de su impacto.

También alegó que la decisión de no elaborar el estudio de impacto ambiental fue tomada por la Dirección General de Evaluación Ambiental de la Consejería de Medio Ambiente de la Comunidad de Madrid, y consideró que esta edición es "arbitraria e injustificable", y contraria a la legislación regional.

Ahora, la Comisión de Peticiones del Parlamento "ha iniciado el examen de su petición y ha decidido solicitar a la Comisión Europea que lleve a cabo una investigación preliminar sobre los diferentes aspectos del problema".

Tan pronto como obtenga la "información necesaria", la comisión parlamentaria "proseguirá el examen" de la petición de Equo.

Equo ha equiparado este proyecto en Valdemoro, que aún no ha sido ejecutado, al desdoblamiento de la M-501, que "ha llevado al Tribunal de Justicia Europeo a inculpar al Reino de España".

Su portavoz en Valdemoro, Javier Carrillo, ha defendido hoy, a través de un comunicado, que existe un emplazamiento para esta infraestructura depuradora, en una parcela de propiedad municipal "muy cercana" y que tendría un impacto ambiental "mucho menor". EFEverde

Determinan el tiempo para que un bosque tropical se recupere tras una tala

Palencia, 30 jul (EFE).- Una investigación sobre los bosques tropicales, desarrollada en el Instituto de Investigación Forestal Sostenible de Palencia de la Universidad de Valladolid-INIA, ha determinado el tiempo necesario para que un bosque tropical seco se recupere tras una tala dependiendo de la especie y del lugar.

El investigador argentino Lidio López Calleja, del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) con sede en Mendoza (Argentina), ha concluido en Palencia una parte de sus investigaciones sobre los bosques tropicales secos, que se dan en países como Bolivia, Paraguay, Brasil o Argentina, gracias a una beca Erasmus-Mundus.

El trabajo ha sido publicado en la revista Bosque con el título "Ritmos de crecimiento diamétrico en los bosques secos tropicales: aportes al manejo sostenible de los bosques de la provincia biogeográfica del Cerrado Boliviano", según ha precisado hoy el Instituto de Investigación Forestal en un comunicado.

En el estudio se ha determinado el tiempo necesario de recuperación que necesitan los bosques tras las talas, que hasta la fecha se establecía en veinte años, un tiempo que no estaba respaldado por ningún estudio científico.

Los resultados obtenidos permitirán sustituir las tradicionales pautas fijas de manejo forestal por otras nuevas, que consideren las variaciones del crecimiento registradas en función de la especie y del lugar de que se trate.

En concreto, el trabajo determina las tasas de crecimiento diamétrico de siete especies maderables del Cerrado Boliviano, con el objetivo de establecer pautas forestales dirigidas al rendimiento sostenible de los bosques tropicales.

Los datos obtenidos, a través de la medición de los anillos del crecimiento, demuestran variaciones del crecimiento del diámetro entre especies que crecen en una misma área y en una misma especie situada en áreas diferentes, considerando tiempos de observación superiores a los cien años. EFEVERDE

La Plataforma del Tajo pide el cese del director general del agua

Toledo, 31 jul (EFE).- La Plataforma en Defensa de los ríos Tajo y Alberche ha reclamado hoy el cese "fulminante" del director general del Agua, Juan Urbano, por el "auténtico despropósito" y "la tomadura de pelo" que constituyen los planes que hoy publica el diario El País de aumentar el agua que se trasvasa al Segura.

Según esa información, para ello se reduciría el agua del Tajo que recibe la comunidad de Madrid, no se aumentaría el caudal ecológico del río en Aranjuez y en Toledo ni se establecería en Talavera de la Reina, si bien la lámina permanente en la cabecera del Tajo aumentaría de 240 a 300 hectómetros.

En declaraciones a Efe, el portavoz de la Plataforma, Miguel Ángel Sánchez, ha pedido el cese del autor ese plan, la rectificación del Ministerio de Agricultura y Medio Ambiente y el posicionamiento claro del Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha.

Para Sánchez, el director del Agua aplica en 2012 las mismas medidas que en tiempos de Franco y, en vez de dar prioridad a las necesidades de la cuenca del Tajo, como establece la directiva europea del Agua, piensa primero en las necesidades del Segura.

"Aunque implique dejar casi desabastecido a Madrid o saltarse los caudales ecológicos", ha lamentado el portavoz de la Plataforma.

A su juicio, reducir la dotación del Tajo a la Comunidad de Madrid implicaría que esta región aumentase "la presión" sobre el Sorbe y el Alberche, lo que perjudicaría de forma notable a Guadalajara y a Talavera.

A cambio, "un caramelo envenenado", el aumento de la lámina de los embalses de la cabecera del Tajo, algo que a su juicio no resuelve los verdaderos problemas del Tajo.

Por ello, ha reclamado al Gobierno castellanomanchego una respuesta clara y ha recordado que la presidenta regional, María Dolores de Cospedal, ha prometido en varias ocasiones el caudal ecológico del Tajo en Talavera de la Reina.

"No toman el pelo a todos o le toman el pelo a ella", ha preguntado Miguel Ángel Sánchez.

En relación con el estado del Tajo, el portavoz de la Plataforma ha denunciado la aparición de miles de peces muertos en el embalse de Navalcán, en la provincia de Toledo, cerca de Talavera de la Reina, por una "planificación nefasta" de la Confederación del Tajo.

Según Sánchez, el pasado verano se vació del 90 al 30 por ciento y, como es un embalse al que le cuesta mucho recuperarse y apenas ha llovido, ahora está al 20%.

"No hay agua y no hay oxigeno y los peces mueren", ha relatado el portavoz de la Plataforma, quien ha apuntado la incidencia que pueden haber tenido las tormentas de los últimos días. EFE

El FesTVal estrenará un documental sobre la capitalidad verde de Vitoria

Vitoria, 31 jul (EFEverde).- La próxima edición del FesTVal, que se celebrará del 4 al 9 de septiembre, estrenará en exclusiva el documental "Donde lo verde es capital", del programa "El escarabajo verde", de La 2, sobre la capitalidad verde europea, título que este año recae en Vitoria.

La próxima edición del FesTVal, que se celebrará del 4 al 9 de septiembre, estrenará en exclusiva el documental "Donde lo verde es capital", del programa "El escarabajo verde", de La 2, sobre la capitalidad verde europea, título que este año recae en Vitoria. En la foto, escultura vegetal que conmemora la Capitalidad Verde Europea, de Vitoria. EFE/Adrián Ruiz de Hierro

El documental, que quiere dar a conocer la forma de vida de los vitorianos, descubrirá la esencia de la ciudad y algunos lugares singulares como el anillo verde. También permite comprobar si es fácil circular en bicicleta por las calles de la ciudad.

El documental se enmarcará dentro del Ciclo Green del festival, en el que se mostrará una selección de documentales sobre medio ambiente de canales temáticos como Odisea, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Canal Plus y Xplora.

Uno de los documentales que se proyectarán es "Por la caída de un árbol: La historia del Frente de Liberación de la Tierra" del canal Odisea, que estuvo nominado al Oscar como mejor documental en la última edición de los premios.

Discovery Channel, por su parte, presentará "Piratas ecológicos" sobre la industria ballenera y las tácticas que la organización ecologista radical Sea Sheperd utiliza para interferir en sus operaciones.

Canal+ también proyectará "Sobre el hielo frágil", de la serie documental "Planeta Helado", realizada por la BBC y uno de los programas documentales más vistos del Reino Unido.

Las proyecciones del ciclo, gratuitas hasta completar aforo, se realizarán en los cines Guridi de la capital alavesa. EFEverde

Piden medidas políticas para impulsar el progreso urbano

Santander, 31 jul (EFEverde).- El director general de CIC Consulting Informático, Fernando Martínez, y el director de Eficiencia Energética de Acciona Energía, Luis Gordo, han pedido hoy a las Administraciones la aplicación de medidas políticas para favorecer el desarrollo de las ciudades a través de la innovación.

En declaraciones a los periodistas con motivo de un curso en la Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (UIMP), Martínez ha asegurado que "los principales problemas" para implantar mejoras en las ciudades se basan en la consciencia de los ayuntamientos en este ámbito y las fórmulas de financiación que disponen las empresas.

El ejecutivo de Acciona ha precisado que las políticas de contratación por parte de los consistorios deberían ser "más a largo plazo" para promover que las empresas adjudicatarias "realicen cambios substanciales en las ciudades", algo que, según Gordo, "cuesta encontrar actualmente en España".

Sin embargo, Martínez ha subrayado que "prácticamente todos los grandes Ayuntamientos en España" están aplicando medidas y políticas en este ámbito, aunque ha admitido que generalmente depende "de la sensibilidad del alcalde".

Además, ha asegurado que un nuevo modelo de financiación para las empresas energéticas y medioambientales "impulsaría más rápidamente la conversión de las ciudades hacia nuevos sistemas de eficiencia y ahorro energético".

AHORRO DE HASTA UN 20 % EN ENERGÍA

De hecho, según Gordo, una mejora de los sistemas de iluminación, de la utilización y regulación de la movilidad y el control de los edificios públicos podría suponer, de media, un ahorro de entre el 15 % y el 20 % de la factura energética anual de las ciudades.

Ambos directivos han reconocido que a causa de la crisis económica el desarrollo de ciudades inteligentes "se está frenando" aunque consideran que "es un buen momento porque obliga a las administraciones locales a reinventarse".

Martínez ha definido una ciudad inteligente como "aquella que aplica innovación para hacer más sencilla la vida a los ciudadanos" y ha precisado que "se pueden conseguir mejoras notables" en ámbitos como el económico, el medioambiental y en la movilidad. EFE