A fish that can live for 150 years and grow to six meters (almost 20 feet) long and as much as 1,200 kilograms (more than 2,500 pounds) appears doomed to extinction.

For this expensive delicacy, wild Beluga sturgeons are indistinctly caught from the Caspian Sea and are on the brink of extinction.
This amazing living fossil fish is a beauty of the seas but chances that it may survive in the wild are almost none. It takes many years for the sturgeons to mature, but as always, our greed leads us to destruction, and all sturgeons are being taken, including the young, immature juveniles, males and females , even though only mature females (only 7% of the catch) bear the eggs.
The scenario is not so good for these sturgeons, as soon they will not be enough for the species to thrive in the wild.

Farmed sturgeons pose an alternative, and if you really wish to have some caviar, choose the farmed one.
Trade of wild caviar is CITES - regulated and the trade of some sturgeon species has been banned.

We are in the hub of a globalizing world, information is widely available to almost everyone, then why does the world keep sinking?
Info and pic from BBC and WWF - where you may find out more about caviar and sturgeons.

UN Urges Protection of Animals from Climate Change

Green Turtle Nesting Season Starts in June in Hong Kong!

Third and last: Recycle

Second: Reuse

The media has done a wonderful job of selling us on the attractiveness and benefits of buying "new", "improved", "special", etc. products. However, we already collectively own so much that we could all survive for quite a while on the existing products - if we just reused them a few times!

1. Garage Sales: Shop at and hold garage sales - this is a great way to reuse products.

Reusables: Switch from disposable to reusable products: food and beverage containers, cups, plates, writing pens, razors, diapers, towels, shopping bags, etc.

3. Donations: Donate your old:
*household items - clothes, furniture, dishes, books, sports equipment, magazines, appliances, electronics, business attire, wedding attire, etc. (to charity)
computer equipment
*building material (to companies who specialize in selling used material)
*cell phones and ink cartridges
*eyeglasses
*extra hangers (to your local dry cleaners)
*art materials (to a school or cultural organization)
*unwanted boxed/bagged/canned food (to homeless shelters, food banks, or soup kitchens)
etc.

4. Buy/Sell Used Items: Buy and sell your items on sites such as:
*Ebay
*Local second hand stores

5. Community Swap: Organize a community swap program (i.e., designate a place where people can leave unwanted items for others to use).
6. Buy Durables: Buy products that will last and take care of them.

7. Teach Thrift: Teach your children the value of being thrifty (the wise economy in the management of money and other resources; frugality).

8. Frugal Printing: Use both sides of each piece of paper -- for note taking or printing documents from your computer (at home or work). Create note pads by stapling together once-used paper.

9. Kitchen Reuseables: Instead of buying these items new, save and reuse all: paper bags, rubber bands, twisties, boxes, and packaging material. Reuse your plastic bags with a handy bag dryer.

10. Library: Pick up books from your local library or used book store. The library is also many times a great place for finding magazines, CDs, books-on-tape, and videos.

11. Rechargeable Batteries: Purchase rechargeable batteries and a battery recharger (some battery rechargers will also recharge regular alkaline batteries).

FIRST: Reduce

The critical first step of waste prevention has been overshadowed by a focus on recycling. Please help to promote a greater awareness of the importance of the "Reduce" part of the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle mantra.

To reduce is the first priority in the waste reduction heirarchy. Using less in the first place, sometimes called source reduction, is the easiest way to solve the world's mounting garbage problem. Source reduction means reducing the amount of material that enters the waste stream. It avoids disposal and pollution problems right from the start, and it conserves natural resources and energy. Reducing waste at the beginning means there will be less waste to be recycled or landfilled. Try some of these ideas at home, school or work today!

1. Simplify: Simplify your life as much as possible. Only keep belongings that you use/enjoy on a regular basis. By making the effort to reduce what you own, you will naturally purchase less/create less waste in the future.

2. Tree-Free Home: As much as possible, create a tree-free home:
*replace paper napkins with cloth napkins
*replace paper towels with a special set of cloth towels/napkins - store the used ones in a small container in your kitchen and just wash and reuse
*purchase bleach-free, toilet paper that is made from the highest post-consumer waste content you can find (80% minimum)
*if you print documents, print on once-used paper and/or bleach-free, recycled paper with the highest post-consumer waste content available (or hemp/alternative-source paper, if you can afford it)
*create and use note pads from once-used paper
*leave messages for family members/roommates on a reusable message board
*make your own cards/letters from once-used products or handmade paper

3. Reduce Purchases: In general, think before you buy any product - do you really need it? How did the production of this product impact the environment and what further impacts will there be with the disposal of the product (and associated packaging materials)? When you are thinking about buying something, try the 30-Day Rule -- wait 30 days after the first time you decide you want a product to really make your decision. This will eliminate impulse buying.

4. Bulk Purchases: Avoid products that are packaged for single use (i.e., drinks, school lunches, candy, cat and dog food, salad mixings, etc.). Instead, buy in bulk and transfer the products to your own reusable containers. Many health food stores have bulk bins where they sell everything from grains to cereal to cleaning products.
For additional ideas, read the Precycling information page.

6. Avoid Trash: Avoid creating trash wherever possible: when ordering food, avoid receiving any unnecessary plastic utensils, straws, etc. (ask in advance), buy ice cream in a cone instead of a cup, don't accept "free" promotional products, buy products with the least amount of packaging, etc. Every little bit of trash avoided does make a difference!

7. Shopping Bags: While shopping, if you only buy a few products skip the shopping bag. For larger purchases, bring your own.

8. Junk Mail: Find the way to avoid junk mail in your hometown.

9. Green Hotels: When staying at a hotel, motel, or bed and breakfast let the management know that you like to support businesses that adopt environmentally responsible practices (including reducing waste). Print out and drop off the Sustainable Solutions for Green Hotels list. To locate environmentally friendly hotels, search on the Internet under "ecotourism" and/or visit Green Hotels Association.

*Mug-to-Go: Carry a mug with you wherever you go for take out beverages.

*Protect Children: Protect your child from mindless consumption.

And more tips for REDUCING waste go to here!

The "rivalry" between those for and those against it exists, as much as for the abortion issue and other hot subjects.

But what one should wonder is "What can be reduced for now? In which way I may help?"

Even though arguable, animal testing has opened the path to discover treatment for many diseases and make new discoveries. (Read more)

However, animal models can't always be extrapolated to humans. There are many physiological differences between Man and other animals and even between different species. This is a major factor the ones against animal testing use to support their position. Even Fleming, the father of penicillin didn't use animals for testing, as many products used in animals may be totally ineffective in humans, and even have an opposite effect.

Some non-vital products companies should ban the use of animals in testing their products, like the cosmetics and household products industries, and many others. These experiments are considered useless and this blogger agrees with it, and also with reducing animal use in experiments in general. Even in schools and universities for teaching purposes (I always skipped classes in university where teachers were going to kill mice, rats, frogs and rabbits to prove something everybody knew. And hummmm, actually, after some experiences, some of the poor rabbits ended up in the cooking pot at the assistant's kitchen...)

What we may do to help is to choose products and brands which were not tested on animals over those which have used animals to certify their products.
In those animal-friendly products, the clear indication of that may be found in the packaging. You may find them widespread in the market now. Many animal friendly and also earth-friendly house and body products can be found in New Zealand Products Shops in Macau (another huge problem...chemicals in household and body products...for a future post!) .

Here you may find a list of animal-friendly brands, a shopping guide or here!

One of the dearest things for this blogger here is the respect for all the living creatures. To be ethical and responsible. To teach children how to behave and respect life and the planet.

Laboratory animals, from daphnias to monkeys, deserve our compassion and every effort should be taken to minimize their suffering or to ban their use.

There is a recently growing trend of scientists aiming to reduce the number of animals used in testings, as many are being substituted by computer models or by those so called lower sensibility animals, like invertebrates. Maybe someday a total ban will come, who knows?

What is the use of insisting on mother-offspring bond deprivation studies in baby monkeys, condemned to isolation since birth, when it is known that they will suffer like hell, become deeply depressed and irreversibly develop stereotypes? There are to many human clinical and real cases from whom scientists may learn and study and be able to help and improve the condition of other patients.

Reduction and regulation of animal testing in all countries should be the key to prevent indiscriminate testing and unnecessary use of animals.

And just a final thought....
Would you feel insecure if you bought a product that has not been tested on animals?
Would you rather buy one that has been tested?
How do you feel about it? Would you take a product with one of these symbols:





(Not-animal-tested (BUAV logo)
logo in Europe,
from here)

I left some tools for now... make your own judgement!

Plastic bags are a real plague and a threat to the environment, to life and to all of us.
What some may consider the invention of the century, others feel that plastic bags are finally turning against us and now one may spot one virtually everywhere, even in what we thought was an untouched natural landscape.... !
We find them stuck in the trees, dumped on the street floors, clustering in the corners, flying with the wind, half buried in the beach sand and deadliest sin of all, floating in the oceans. They survive the elements and live way longer than us. It takes 20 to 1000 years for a plastic bag to breakdown in the environment. After they breakdown, small bits of toxic plastic dust will still remain.

Plastics ain't fantastic...

How can a turtle tell: A jellyfish and a coral or a plastic bag stuck in a coral?

Because they resemble jellyfish (a common food for most sea
creatures), when "swimming" in the ocean, thousands of innocent marine animals die each year, as plastic bags block the guts of turtles, dolphins, seals, puffins and many others. And most shocking of all....the same bag becomes a serial killer, as it gets released from the victim's decomposed body, rather unchanged, and ready to strike again.

REUSE and RECYCLE all the plastic bags you have and if you dispose of them, be certain that they are not let free to roam and cause more victims in the ocean. Don't leave plastic bottles or bags or products unattended near the rivers or the sea. If you find one in the beach, please help and take it to the nearest bin, it might make a difference to a passing by sweet dolphin or gentle giant turtle, searching for a meal.

A grotesque view of a beautiful creature and an even more grotesque way to die.

Fortunately, many countries are implementing rules for reducing the use of plastic bags, and in many stores you need to pay for each plastic bag, and so they are not given away so thoughtlessly!

Do search for biodegradable plastics and BYOB!
For those who haven't noticed yet, many shops have reusable bags available, like Hong Kong's City Super, Ikea or in Macau the new collection of Bossini fold and go-bags! It doesn't take that much to keep one in your bag or pocket.

Facts:

1. If you throw away 2 aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world's poorest people use a day.

2. Making a new can from scratch uses the uses the energy equal to half a can of gasoline.

3. Aluminum cans may be recycled over and over again!

What we can do to help:

1. Separate all cans we use (drinks, canned food), give them a wash and put them in the can-reclycling container in your neighbourhood.

2. In Macau you may find these containers all over the city. Or give them to passing by can collectors - they earn money for selling cans to recycling companies!

3. Cans, paper and plastic are taken from Macau and recycled in Guangzhou Province, China.

A few poachers were arrested and 292 marine turtles were aprehended inside Chinese fishing boats, in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo.

Marine turtles are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which stipulates that no marine turtles may be taken across international borders, except under very special circumstances, with permits, and not for commercial trade. (full article here)

If you are a traveller, and enjoy taking souvenirs from the countries you visit, be aware and don't forget that any product from a protected animal or plant species you take may be liable to aprehension and you may get in deep trouble in the border control (if all detection systems are working and effective...)
Don't purchase products made from turtle shells, ivory, coral and many others /- and if you are not sure about it, please don't buy!

WWF Seafood Guide to Encourage Consumption of Green and Sustainably Produced Seafood
World Wildlife Fund has launched a convenient, easy-to-use Seafood Guide to promote the consumption of green and sustainably produced seafood. This is the first seafood guide in East Asia to cover a wide range of seafood using the latest information. Consumers and corporate diners are encouraged to actively use the Guide as a reference when buying seafood at markets and dining out.

More than 60 popular seafood species are included in the Guide. They are placed into three categories; Green - "Recommended", Yellow — "Think Twice" and Red — "Avoid". Consumers are advised to consume Green — "Recommended" species and stop selecting Red — "Avoid" species. The Yellow — "Think twice" species are in-between the "Recommended" and "Avoid" categories, and seafood lovers are advised to consume them warily.

To download the Seafood Guide please visit this!

Tigers are....

(Please use Viagra and save a tiger!)

...but still pretend it won't affect us.
Our planet is tired.
We can make a difference to improve our lives and our future.

Here's a first tip:

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE.

At least think about it. You only need to start doing it, then you get used to it and soon after you'll feel bad about yourself whenever you don't do it. ;-)