Environmental Management

 Then, define the Environmental management as the set of measures that seeks to articulate the "How should be done" in order to achieve the objective of a Sustainable development of a community or a given territory.

This set of actions should be applied in a given area, focusing not only on the implementation of various laws and legal actions, but also giving the framework to the tasks which must be carried out, contemplating is then as follows:

Environmental policy: concerning the address public or private Environmental Affairs International, regional, national and local. It is often subject of debate every year with the budget of various government entities, applied to the care of the environment and ecology.Zoning: includes the distribution of the use of the territory considering the characteristics of the same, not only physical but also considering the resources and populations which it possesses. 

Environmental impact assessment: whereas the actions that seek to estimate the effects which will be the establishment of various projects, plans or programmes which are implemented on a given territory, taking into account their influence on the environment.Wildlife: study and seeks to implement conservative measures towards the Living beings that inhabited a specific area, looking primarily for the conservation of the biodiversityenvironmental education: on propaganda and measures of awareness that carried the man to care for and preserve their Biophysical environment, which leads to greater efficiency in the treatment of Environmental problems.Landscape: not only is the care of natural resources, but also of all the biotic, esthetic and cultural factors relating to the exploitation of them.

Without delve much into details about it, there are so many measures such as issues relating to the problem of Environmental management, whereas a specific treatment for each pollutant, and thus, countless measures carried out, although they are always based on the following General practices:

Waste management: measures which aim mainly to the recycling, reuse and reduction of waste.Mitigation: whereas mainly to issues of Climate change and other damage to the environmentprevention: implementation of measures seeking to reduce pollution and all the actions that lead to a destruction of the environment.

Meygen Marine Tidal Power Environmental Impact Assessment Moves Forward

 Sponsor and developer of the world’s largest marine tidal power project announced to date, Meygen’s contracted Norway’s Kongsberg Maritime (KM) to carry out underwater noise studies for its 400-MW project in Scotland’s Pentland Firth. KM will measure and monitor noise levels from prototype Meygen tidal turbines at a European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) site to assess their effect on marine life before they are approved for installation at the project site.

KM’s also helping MeyGen monitor progress of turbine suppliers’ trials at EMEC in Orkney. “The results of the underwater noise impact studies being carried out by Kongsberg Maritime at Emec will affect how the devices are positioned on the seabed [at the MeyGen project site] to deliver optimum power while having minimal impact on marine life,” Recharge News quoted KM’s general manager for offshore, David Shand.
“Crown Jewel” of Scotland’s Marine Tidal Resource Base

MeyGen is aiming to install marine tidal turbines at depths between 20-40 meters over a 3.5-square kilometer area of the Pentland Firth between Scotland’s northern coast and the island of Stroma, an area considered the “crown jewel” of Scotland’s rich marine tidal resource base. Currents there average 4 meters/second, according to Recharge News’ report.

A joint venture between investment bank Morgan Stanley, independent power company International Power and marine tidal technology provider Atlantis Resources, Meygen’s moving forward with plans to install a 20-MW pilot installation of marine tidal turbines from Atlantis Resources and Rolls-Royce-TGL (Tidal Generation Ltd.) at the Pentland Firth site. Overall project completion is slated for 2020.

The underwater noise studies are a big part of the Meygen project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) and consenting processes. The project’s EIA will span the entire project development process, spanning the environmental impacts of the marine tidal power generation array to the substation connections to the UK national electricity grid.

MeyGen’s produced an EIA scoping document as per Scottish regulations for Phase I of the project. The EIA scoping document is meant to ensure Meygen’s EIA process is comprehensive and conforms with Scottish environmental protection regulations.

In it, Meygen states it will “conduct a preliminary review of the environmental baseline and risks which require more detailed assessment and provide a framework for consultation and identify the relevant regulatory bodies and statutory and non-statutory stakeholders.”

The exploitation of Coltan, environmental and human looting after our mobile phones

Today I will discuss a very disturbing subject matter and little known: the exploitation of Coltan in Africa. Coltan is the colloquial name given to the columbite-tantalite, a mineral natural properties has become strategic for the development of telecommunications, "smart" weapons and computer science. Illegal extraction is the origin of bloody tribal wars, you massacres human and animal, and enslaved and child labour.

The idea to this brief report came when I had the opportunity to receive article "The Coltan fever" Ramón Lobo and after reading few pages impacted me deeply the terrible situation described and - even more - great ignorance I had thereon. Trying to investigate on the internet I've noticed that you there a chord, spread is generally covered by a few media. Why we believe in bringing this subject ElBlogVerde, readers not only to spread the news, but also open to input from information that you can perform.

Let's start from the beginning, coltan it is a mineral that niobium and tantalum are extracted and is extremely scarce natural resource. About 20 years ago began to be coveted due to their unique properties: superconductivity, supports very high temperatures, is a capacitor (storing temporary electric charge and her freeing the when needed) and resistant to corrosion. Its main applications are mobile telephony, computers, games, smart weapons, implant medical, aerospace, among others.

The main producers worldwide are Australia, Brazil, Canada and some African countries such as People's Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Ethiopia. This "ranking" is based on legal mining statistics. But the reality is that 80% of the natural reserves on the planet are in Africa, and at the same time 80% of them in the Congo. This has led to the development of a huge illegal mining industry that literally sacks coltan of Congolese soil. Then trafficked mineral on the black market to a number of traders and intermediaries to huge multinational enterprises that manufacture our computers, video games and mobile phones.

This "fever" has a geopolitical background related to the occupation of a huge territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by armies and guerrilla Rwanda and Uganda. This atrocious "the coltan war" taps into conflict ethnic and economic as the appropriation of this "strategic" mineral. He is estimated that over 5 million lives has already been claimed.

But killing extends even more as subhuman conditions of exploitation of coltan in alluvial mines (at land level) provide work of semiesclavos, for those who are prisoners or children .. Many die in mines or suffer the raw physical consequences of an unhealthy work.

Other victims of this bloody "fever of coltan," are the wild animals of the region. What you describe is also the case in "protected" by the Unesco: national parks in kahuzi-biega (in South Kivu) and Okapi. There, it is true ecological disaster that has left irreparable damage to the ecosystem. Thousands of elephants and gorillas are killed to feed mine workers.

There is definitely a lot more to tell on the subject of the exploitation of coltan, why we recommend continue reading more on the links listed at bottom of page.