Tell Secretary Jewell to Protect Wolverines!
Petition link –
http://forcechange.com/132232/save-the-last-wolverines-from-extinction/
author: Defenders of Wildlife
target: Secretary Jewell, U.S. Department of the Interior
signatures: 21,287
Despite a unanimous recommendation by scientists that the wolverine be listed as threatened under the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has scrapped plans to protect this imperiled mammal.
Fewer than 300 of these animals are left in the Lower 48.
What is worse, scientists estimate that on average, no more than 35 of these animals are capable of contributing each year to future generations of wolverines being born.
Tell Secretary Jewell to do the right thing and give wolverines the protection they deserve!
Stop Big Oil From Blasting Airguns in Whale Habitat
Petition link – http://forcechange.com/135646/save-endangered-whales-from-oil-spills/
author: Center for Biological Diversity
target: President Barack Obama
signatures: 14,090
We have to act now to save one of the world’s most endangered whales from Big Oil. President Obama recently gave oil companies the green light to explore for oil off the Atlantic Coast, from Delaware to Florida. This means seismic testing — blasting sound guns 100,000 times louder than a jet engine underwater.
Right whales raise their babies off the Atlantic Coast, and the calving season just started. But oil companies are gearing up to blast airguns in the area that can deafen, maim and kill these highly endangered animals. Seismic surveys use powerful explosions that disrupt whales’ feeding, breeding, communications and other essential behaviors.
There are fewer than 500 North Atlantic right whales left in the world, and this plan could expose them to hundreds of incidents of harassment and harm.
Protect the Maasai people from a government hunting reserve
Petition – go to: http://action.sumofus.org/a/serengeti-land-grab/?sub=homepage
Update, 8:45pm GMT 25 November 2014: The Tanzanian President has tweeted that he will not pursue to deal with the hunting reserve — but we cannot back off until the Maasai are guaranteed permanent rights to their land, in writing. We’ve updated the petition text to reflect this additional, critical, ask.
The Tanzanian government plans to kick 40,000 Maasai people off their ancestral land to make way for a luxury big game hunting reserve. A section of the famous Serengeti plains, which teems with lions, leopards, elephants, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo, is to be sold to a Dubai-based company, the Ortelo Business Corporation, for a commercial hunting ground.
The Tanzanian government has been forced to back down once before — last year, after massive local and international opposition to the plan, Tanzania’s president promised the Maasai they could stay on their lands. Now the government has made a sudden u-turn, and told them the deal is back on andthey must leave their ancestral territory by the end of this year.
Tell Tanzania’s president to keep his promise and cancel the corporate land-grab once and for all.
The Maasai have been fighting the commercialisation of their traditional lands for decades, battling greedy investors eyeing the area’s extraordinary wildlife and trying to get hunting and tourism permits. The nomadic herders are furious at the news that this deal has come back to life.
“This is the worst kind of betrayal ever,” said Ole Kulinga, a Maasai elder and traditional leader. “This government’s promises are clearly worth nothing. They said our lands were safe — the lands where the Maasai have lived and died for generations — but now they are going to take them from us, and sell them to rich royals from overseas who want to come and slaughter animals. We will never accept this deal. Our land is not for sale.”
There is a lot of money riding on the Dubai deal. Local activists opposing the hunting reserve over the last two years have been threatened, and even killed. So international attention and pressure has a crucial part to play in exposing the Tanzanian government’s betrayal and forcing it to keep its promises. Please stand with the Maasai people who could lose everything, and help them keep their homelands.
Sign the petition to Tanzania’s president telling him to abandon the deal now.
**********
More information:
Tanzania accused of backtracking over sale of Maasai’s ancestral land, The Guardian, November 16, 2014.
Tanzania ditches plan to evict Masai for Serengeti ‘wildlife corridor’, The Guardian, October 7, 2013.
Masai face losing their homeland to hunters, The Times, November 19, 2014.
Filed under: CAMPAIGNS - Global Animal Welfare Issues, GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional, GLOBAL PETITIONS - Anything Animal, Anywhere ! | Leave a comment »
Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 