Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

Subject:

Serbia: Going Veg Where Doctors Still Promote Meat-Eating

source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/going-veg-where-doctors-still-promote-meat-eating.php

The Balkan countries aren’t generally known for their light, healthy fare. When expat Istanbul-dwellers cross the border into Bulgaria, it’s to indulge in bacon-wrapped cheese skewers, cheese-stuffed pork loin… you get the idea. But some forward-thinking folks in Novi Sad, Serbia, are a promoting another way of eating with their third annual “Planeta Vegetariana” vegetarian food and organic agriculture fair.

Opened yesterday and running through today, this year’s installment of Planeta Vegetariana gathers regional producers of healthy foods on the city’s main piazza, just in front of City Hall. Ethical cosmetics, plant-based medicines, and other products made “in harmony with nature” are also on display, along with exhibitions of posters from global ecology and animal rights campaigns. Last year’s edition included an organic fashion show, presentations on fitness and sports activities, and talks on healthy eating and the relationship between health and ecology.

Combating Misinformation About Vegetarianism
The first fair, in 2007, drew around 3,000 visitors, and organizers reported that they were “pleasantly surprised” by the response and that as a result, “the subject of vegetarianism suddenly became common knowledge in Serbia, even against all the ignorance and various prejudices about it.”

“Our doctors constantly preach that we should eat meat, but it is scientifically proven that we can nourish ourselves without [it],” organizer Stevan Zivkov, the director of the Cityfocus Agency, said at the time, expressing his hopes that increased production of organic agriculture could become a boon not only to Serbians’ health but to the country’s export industry.

Located on the banks of the Danube river in the northern province of Vojvodina, Novi Sad has long been a cultural, industrial, and financial center for the country. The Planeta Vegetariana fair is just one example of how it’s starting to become an environmental leader too — and not a moment too soon.

A Green Music Festival and Courier Service
“The pollution of our cities is devastating and respiratory diseases are very frequent in our country; also the number of green areas in our largest cities is dropping dramatically,” says Zivkov. But, he added, “I can generally say that the people are much more interested in ecology than the government and especially the media.”

In July, Novi Sad’s Petrovaradin Fortress fortress drew music lovers from around Europe to the Exit Festival, hosted under the Ecology Ministry-supported theme “I Want to Live Green and Clean,” which incorporated recycling and educational activities into the event. And since April, special “Green Courier” bicycles and electric scooters have been zipping around the city making ecofriendly deliveries of food, documents, and small packages, the first such service in the Balkans. Ziveli!

More about vegetarian diets
Try a Weekday Vegetarian Diet: Eat Green Food without Taking the Plunge
Vegetarian Diet Could Cut Climate Change Mitigation Costs by 70 Percent
8 Vegetarian Celebrities We Love: Macho Men Who Don’t Eat Meat
Vegetarian Options Increasing in Kebabistan
7 Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Meals
Tommy Lee On Going Vegetarian
Proven: Vegetarians Live Longer
Emeril Green Episode: Vexing Vegetarian

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps

Posted Oct 29,2009

The November issue of National Geographic magazine features a moving photograph of chimpanzees watching as one of their own is wheeled to her burial. Since it was published, the picture and story have gone viral, turning up on websites and TV shows and in newspapers around the world. For readers who’d like to know more, here’s what I learned when I interviewed the photographer, Monica Szczupider.

On September 23, 2008, Dorothy, a female chimpanzee in her late 40s, died of congestive heart failure. A maternal and beloved figure, Dorothy had spent eight years at Cameroon’s Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center, which houses and rehabilitates chimps victimized by habitat loss and the illegal African bushmeat trade.

After a hunter killed her mother, Dorothy was sold as a “mascot” to an amusement park in Cameroon. For the next 25 years she was tethered to the ground by a chain around her neck, taunted, teased, and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for sport. In May 2000 Dorothy—obese from poor diet and lack of exercise—was rescued and relocated along with ten other primates. As her health improved, her deep kindness surfaced. She mothered an orphaned chimp named Bouboule and became a close friend to many others, including Jacky, the group’s alpha male, and Nama, another amusement-park refugee.

Szczupider, who had been a volunteer at the center, told me: “Her presence, and loss, was palpable, and resonated throughout the group. The management at Sanaga-Yong opted to let Dorothy’s chimpanzee family witness her burial, so that perhaps they would understand, in their own capacity, that Dorothy would not return. Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration. But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that [they] are not [usually] silent creatures.”

Sanaga-Yong was founded in 1999 by veterinarian Sheri Speede (pictured at right, cradling Dorothy’s head; at left is center employee Assou Felix). Operated by IDA-Africa, an NGO, it’s home to 62 chimps who reside in spacious, forested enclosures.

Szczupider submitted the photograph to Your Shot, a magazine feature that encourages readers to send in pictures they’ve taken. The best are published on the website and in the magazine.

—Jeremy Berlin

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »

Madagascar’s Protected Rainforest Hardwoods Continue

to be Selectively Logged

By Rainforest Rescue – http://www.rainforestrescue.org/
with Rainforest Portal http://www.rainforestportal.org/

– a project of Ecological Internet
October 28, 2009

Post-coup illegal log and wildlife trade continue to threaten Madagacar’s biodiversity rich rainforest remnants, ecological sustainability and future potential for national advancement.

 This great nation’s precious hardwoods deserve CITES protections, to ensure selective logging of any sort in its primary old forests ends.

** TAKE ACTION HERE NOW **:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=madagascar_landgrab

Loggers and wildlife traders continue to violate Madagascar’s biodiversity rich rainforests including protected areas. In March of this year controversy surrounding leasing of agricultural land resulted in a military coup.

In the chaos that ensued, armed gangs funded by Chinese traders entered Madagascar’s Marojejy and Masoala National Parks, two world-renowned World Heritage Sites, and logged rosewood, ebonies, and other valuable hardwoods. NGOs operating in Madagascar report continued armed, open and organized plundering of precious wood from several natural forests, including these parks.

MORE INFORMATION AND TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=madagascar_landgrab

DISCUSS THIS ALERT:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/10/madagascars_endangered_rainfor.asp

Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional | Leave a comment »