Biomass refers to the total quantity (mass) of living organisms on Earth. These figures include :
bacteria (just over 12.8% of live time),
plants (just over 82.5%),
fungi (2.20%).
Animals represent less than 0.4% of the total biomass of living organisms on Earth.
Wild mammals represent only 4% of the terrestrial mammal biomass, while humans represent 36% and cattle 60%!
Our present economic system is based on the globalization of trade for an ever greater production of beef, fed with cereals produced in an industrial way. This generates deforestation, the use of violent and naturocidal chemical inputs. But all this increases financial exchanges and makes MONEY!
Agro-industrial lobbies lead the world we live in, supported by the pharmaceutical lobbies that prefer us sick rather than healthy. And all this kills the biodiversity we need to live. It’s up to you to see what you choose. NOW.
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Plastic is catastrophic!
12 000 per litre of water
The number of microparticles per litre of water that researchers found when melting ice samples from the Arctic region. 17 kinds of plastics were trapped in ice. 10 tonnes produced per second
This is the amount of plastic produced every second in the world. Since 1950, 6.3 billion plastic wastes have accumulated on the planet. 1 million plastic bottles sold per minute
In France, only 56% of the plastic bottles are recycled. In Germany, for example, they recycle 90% of plastic bottles.. 1000 years to decompose
A plastic bottle takes between 100 and 1000 years to decompose. For a plastic bag, it takes 400 years. 1,6 million km²
It is the size of the 7sup>e/sup> continent made of plastic, which floats between Hawaii and California, for an area equal to three times France. Some 1,800 billion pieces of plastic, weighing a total of 80,000 tonnes, would be there. 99% of seabirds contaminated by 2050
This is the proportion of seabirds that will have already ingested plastic by 2050. In the early 1960s, only 5% were affected by this scourge.
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2700 litres of water for 1 T-shirt : should I really buy it ?
For all of us, and also people who support NGO for Environment protection, don’t forget that :
1 T-shirt = 100 g of pesticides,
1 T-shirt = 300g of cotton yarn that need 1.3 kilos of cotton fiber, i.e. 28 cotton bush trees ans 14 m² of lanscape,
1 T-shirt = 2700 liters of water, i.e. 18 bathtubs full of water,
1 T-shirt is travelling from the producing country to the different countries that are going to spin the cotton, then to knit or weave it, then comes the stage of “ennoblement of the cotton” with 7 000 chemical components ...
1 white T-shirt is not “naturally” white : it was been cleared with some hydrogen peroxide, some hydrochloric acid or some peroxide of hydrogen. And the dyes used for most part of our clothes contain heavy metals and bring in solvents.
60 millions people live on cotton production in India : although India prohibits the work of children, children work for 2 months in cotton fields up to 12 hours a day, at 35°C, without a protecting mask nor gloves.
22000 people die each year from cotton intoxication.
Cotton production is the the 3rd most important water-consuming production in the world, even after truck farming.
Then, do you really need this T-shir, even if buying it helps to support a cause and it is produced from an ecological sector ? It’s up to you and to choose, and to face up to your responsibilities.
Source : https://www.muudana.com/fabrication-tshirt-coton/
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15 000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of beef meat
1.550 BILLION kilos of beef meat are consumed each year in France, this equates to 50 kilos of beef eaten every second of every day. Beef represents 68 % of the total consumption of meat in France.
15 000 liters of water is needed to produce a single kilo of beef in France (in comparison, it only takes 2 000 litres to produce a kilo of rice).
1 000 000 liters of water (1000m3 is needed to produce one ton of wheat. Yet, in France, 80 % of cereals are produced to feed cattle and are not intended for human consumption.
Between 60.000.000.000 and 142.794.000.000 (between 60 and 140BILLION !!) animals are killed to be consumed EVERY YEAR in the world, that is 114 000 animals killed every minute.
According to a Harris pool in 2017, 5 % of the French population are either vegetarian or vegans, compared to 7 to 11 % in England and 9 % in Germany.
Meat production has a huge ecological impact on the Earth including, but not limited to, excessive water consumption, soil degradation, climate change and the mistreatment of animals.
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Forests: only a moment to cut them down, but how many centuries to regenerate?
The world’s forests represent :
30% of the total area of land (less than 4 billion hectares, according to FAO 2015). In comparison, 400 years ago, 66 % of land was covered with forests ;
80 % of the original world forest cover has been cut down or damaged, essentially during the last 30 years. All in all, about 129 million hectares of forests have been lost since 1990, practically the land area of South Africa (according to the World Resources Institute).
However :
According to the FAO, 60 million people are totally dependent on forests to live ;
Forests shelter 80% of terrestrial biodiversity ;
Forests absorb one third of global CO2 from fossil fuel emissions released into the atmosphere ;
To become a forest, firstly, pioneer species colonize the available space. Typically around 50 years later, these pioneers die and produce the necessary nutrients (humus) for the forest to grow. To become a mature forest, it would take another 700 years, if it remains undisturbed.
The level of oxygen and quality of the air, water, food, medicine … and the whole of humanity is dependant on forests.
LET’S STOP KILLING OUR FORESTS !
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STOP buying water in plastic bottles !
Water sold in plastic bottles is a 150€ billion market. In France, water in plastic bottles is 300 times more expensive to the consumer than tap water. Indeed, tap water is drinkable, and, in blind tasting, has been found to be preferred to bottled water. Bottled water (in plastic) is:
25 million of plastic bottles are used EVERY DAY only in France, among which only 49% are recycled,
22 000 tons of plastic waste are ending up in the sea EVERY DAY,
Plastic has been found in the stomachs of 90% of seabird populations,
Each plastic bottle needs more than 1000 YEARS to degrade into plastic beads, that cause further damage...
1 litre of water in plastic bottle = 10cl of petroleum + 80gr of coal + 42l of gas + 2 liters of water,
It is the overexploitation of groundwaters by industries, which deprive the local populations of access to water (such as NESTLE in Brazil, in Pakistan),
Water in plastic bottles remain hours/days on pallets outside, sometimes in direct sunlight, how can this be good for your health?
If you need to carry water, choose carefully your container.
Source : infography Mr. Mondialisation
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11 000 litres of water to produce a pair of jeans
Everything we use, wear, buy, sell and eat takes water to make. The water footprint is a measure of humanity’s appropriation of fresh water in volumes of water consumed and/or polluted. Let’s try to think about it, before buying something and consuming more than we need....Here are some figures:
15 415 litres of water are necessary to produce 1 kg of beef meat ;
11 000 litres of water are necessary for a pair of jeans;
* Current worms appeared 200 million years ago (humans only 200 000 years ago).
* Earthworms are classified into three main categories:
1) leaf litter- or compost-dwelling worms that are nonburrowing, live in the soil-litter interface and are called Epigeic,
2) topsoil- or subsoil-dwelling worms that feed (on soil), burrow and cast within soil, creating horizontal burrows in the upper 10–30cm of soil (called Endogeics),
3) worms that construct permanent deep vertical burrows, which they use to visit the surface to obtain plant material for food, such as leaves (called Anecic - meaning “reaching up”).
* They are an essential link of the food chain and the guarantors of the soil fertility.
* They clean up soils, they handle waste water, they recycle the organic waste by digesting it. Thanks to the worms’ composting, our rubbish can decrease by 40 %!
* These worms fight against soil erosion: they are the “first ploughmen of the soil” allowing the restoration of life to the soil. By going back and forth between the surface and the deep soil, earthworms give to the soil this necessary texture and aerated structure that quickly disappears if earthworms are eliminated by chemical applications, by frequent mechanical cultivation, or if the soil is compacted by the repeated passages of heavy machines.
* In France in 1950, 2 tons of earthworms were living in 1ha of farmland; today, only 50kg to 200kg of earthworms are remaining in 1ha of farmland… Let’s save earthworms!!!
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Bees : Pesticides & GMO = No Future!
Bees have been on Earth for 100 million years: they were already living at the time of dinosaurs!
The only insect which produces its own food that is edible by humans: honey!
The only insect which has been tamed for the purposes of food and agricultural production.
The weight of a bee is 0,10 g. A bee brings back to the hive about 0,05g of nectar (i.e. 50 % of its weight) per journey.
Approximatly 20 journeys a day; 1kg of honey represents 50000 journeys, that is practically 40 000 km, i.e. a trip around the Earth!
80 % of the botanical species (among them cultures, which feed humanity) need bees to be fertilised. Without bees, no pollination, and thus practically no fruits, or vegetables.
Despite of the partial European ban on 3 neonicotinoïdes substances, their use in volume has increased by 31 % between 2013 and 2014! A very serious and disconcerting increase. Source: UNAF.
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FRANCE is killing its wolves and mistreating its sheep
French sheep livestock : 7,2 million animals in 2014 on 78840 sheep farms.
Size of sheep farms in France has gone from 500 to 3000 sheep !
In 2014, 840 000 sheep were sent to slaughter by breeders.
9000 sheep killed/year, whose deaths are attributed to wolves (allowing the payment of governmental subsidies).
36 wolves is the “ceiling” or the maximum number of wolves that can be shot in France for the current year (July, 2015-June 2016) ; this figure has been determined by a ministerial decree of S. Royal without any scientific back-up.
Since July, 2015, 46 wolves have died in France : 35 killed by hunters, 2 poached, 6 killed “by accident”, 1 “not clarified case”, 2 cases of “possibly natural mortality”. These are official figures, maybe more wolves have been poached/killed.
Nevertheless wolves are a protected species in Europe and in France. It means that France has to preserve the species and its habitats. This is not the case.Is the wolf an easy scapegoat of the severely affected sheep farming sector ? You cannot break a fever by breaking the thermometer!
Too late for being pessimistic
TENDUA was created in 2008, following a trip to India where, despite numerous national parks, wildlife and its habitat are threatened by human presence. Unfortunately, worldwide, biodiversity is in danger on land and in the seas.
If some new species are still discovered from time to time, many more have disappeared already, such as the Yangtze dolphin, the clouded leopard in Taiwan, the cougar of the East cost of the United States, just to name a few of the most publicized, and many more species, plant and animal, are still endangered of extinction.
The most fragile are the top-predators as they occupy the top of the trophic chain.
Some emblematic animals such as the tiger, the lion, the polar bear, but also herbivorous such as elephants and rhinos, some cetaceans and shark species are threatened of extinction into the wild before 2020, i.e. tomorrow.... Old-grost forests and incredible ecosystems are destroyed everyday by our human activities, to produce more and more... These losses will not be without effect on man.
The 6th major extinction of biodiversity is in progress: in 150 years the man managed to destroy his environment, as he had never done before. The previous extinctions that scientists know were the result of an evolutionary process; nowadays the planet’s balance is heavily threatened by human activities.
In August 2013, it was estimated that humanity, in its unbridled consumption has exceeded the regenerative capacity of the Earth.
The industrials are rushing for patents on not yet listed animals and not yet recorded plants, that are living in oceanic “no-man’s-lands” or in the rare primary still forests existing (for how long?) of the poorest countries. What for? To pull a net sharp profit under the fallacious pretext to find treatments for the troubles of the richest countries. The politics of any edges and horizons are strewing their electoral speeches with “new environmental priorities” which are very soon downgraded given “the difficult economic situation”, and every of them to venture in the “green business”, in the “fair trade” or in the “Socially Responsible Investments”, with motivations which are not the ones that we could hope.
However, we do not have time to be pessimistic. Beautiful things still surround us and there are some beautiful places, on lands and seas, that we can preserve. We can all act individually by small daily actions, and also collectively, a thorough movement is already on its way: TENDUA wishes to contribute in.
A new type of relationship between the man and the nature
TENDUA is suggesting to each of us to think about a new type of relationship between the man and the nature. The nature is wrongly considered as a resource. It leads humans to use the nature and to consider that all this generosity, this beauty and very concretely “raw materials”, water and air are there at his disposal, to his service and for any eternity (at least for his life expectancy). The existing relationship between the “civilized man”- or “last people” - and the nature can not be anymore described as being harmonic, as are those of some”first peoples" that are going to be eradicated from the lands that we dispossess them.
Anyway, it is a question of changing a little bit one’s frame of reference and to become aware of our freedom of choice: we are lucky, for the most part of us, to feel concerned by our environment, and to become an actor, at our level.
Concretely, that it does mean? In our everyday life, it means being more attentive to our consumption, more alerted in what is taking place around us: for example, to read labels allows understanding from where comes a product, to prefer some and to avoid others, not wasting water, be aware as possible of the impact of our choices - even personal - on the state of the planet. Around the world.
To join TENDUA
Fill in the membership form (below) and send it back by mail to TENDUA with your payment, either by cheque, established on behalf of TENDUA, or by cash. The membership will be considered as null and void if no payment has been received by TENDUA.
Membership and partnership
We remind you that TENDUA is a fully independent association and does not benefit from any subsidies or any operating funding. We operate only from your memberships and partnerships and also the help of the professional photo laboratory RainbowColor and the nature’s books publisher Empreinte & Territoires. Collected money is forwarded directly to conservation programs, the operating expenses of the association are being minimised and managed, for the most part, by the founding members.