Some good tips here! The author even mentions some mistakes he's made...

Excerpt from: #Foraging: Ultimate Guide to Wild Food

by Eric Orr

Proper Identification of #WildEdibles

"Before eating any wild plant, make 100% sure it's not poisonous.

"Find a mentor. Learning from an expert or someone more experienced will give you a higher level of confidence.

"Get a Good Book. There’s no substitute for a mentor, but a good field guide is a close second. A reference book will give you confidence as you get more comfortable with foraging.

"Learn the few dangerous species in your area before venturing into the wild to forage. If you know what poisonous plants you may encounter, you'll feel more comfortable foraging for the edible species.

"Don't always rely on common names. Common names can refer to several different plants. Some wild edible plants share the same common names as poisonous plants. Latin names are more reliable. For example, if someone offers you hemlock tea, before drinking, you might ask whether it's infused with Conium maculatum (Poison Hemlock) or with the tender tips of Tsuga canadensis (Eastern Hemlock tree). Latin was chosen to classify plants and animals because it's a dead language, so we can't expect it to evolve or change, whereas common names vary and fluctuate.

"Use all of your senses. Don't limit yourself to visual ID alone. Lots of wild edible plants have look-alikes. Learn how to differentiate similar plants by smell, feel, texture, etc. It's not a rule, but in many cases, poisonous plants are unpalatable and rank smelling. That said, taste should only be used if you're absolutely sure the plant is not poisonous. Some plants, such as water hemlock, are deadly in very small doses.

"Learn habitat. You won't find cattails on a high slope, and you won't find ramps in a swamp.

"Learn companion plants. Many plants are commonly found growing nearby certain other species. If you see yellow dock, there's a good chance pokeweed will be close by.

"Learn to follow wild edible plants through all seasons. This is important for two reasons. First is positive identification. When I was learning to forage, I misidentified the poisonous white snakeroot as wood nettle. I put the leaves in soup for a few months. Fortunately I only added it in small quantities and no one got sick. When it bloomed in July, it became clear to me that I had made a mistake. There are admittedly other subtleties of differentiation that I should have noticed, but the flowers were a dead giveaway.

"Another reason to follow wild edible plants through the seasons is to locate perennial plants that you want to harvest in early spring. For example, by the time pokeweed becomes identifiable, it's often past the point of use. If you make note of it during the warmer months, you'll know where to find it when it first appears in spring.

"Learn which parts of a wild edible plant are safe to use. Just because a wild plant is considered edible doesn't mean all parts are edible. For instance, while ripe cooked elderberries are safe to eat, the bark, stems and roots are considered poisonous. It's also important to note that some plants are only edible at certain times of the year. For example, stinging nettle shouldn't be used after it goes to seed.

"Keep a foraging journal. This is really important for developing a sense of what is available in your area when. Through months and years of recording your foraging finds, you'll gradually compile a calendar that tells you what's on the horizon for harvesting. This will also help you plan a menu schedule ahead of time."

Read more:
https://www.wildedible.com/foraging
#SolarPunkSunday #SaveTheForests #MoreGreenTime #LessScreenTime #NatureBasedLearning

From: #WoodlandTrustUK

Responsible #foraging guidelines

"Leave plenty behind

"Wild food is vital for the survival of the #UK’s #wildlife.

"Forage carefully to ensure there is enough left for birds and species to consume now and to ensure plants and fungi can regenerate and reproduce. You may not be the only person foraging and plants and fungi need to produce seeds and spores to grow into the next generation."

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/things-to-do/foraging/foraging-guidelines/
#SolarPunkSunday #WildEdibles #Foraging #SaveTheForests #MoreGreenTime #LessScreenTime

Boo hiss! If I were Biden, I'd be passing all sort of stuff -- and freeing #LeonardPelltier!

#Biden administration withdraws #OldGrowth #forest plan after getting pushback from industry and GOP

https://apnews.com/article/biden-old-growth-forests-climate-change-e365debe64acf791f16de2ce75cb9342
#USPol #SaveTheForests #FreeLeonardPeltier #GrowABackboneJoe

Humanity's Chance to Reverse #AmazonRainforest's Slide Toward #TippingPoint Is 'Shrinking'

The world's largest #rainforest showed "ominous indicators," including #wildfires and #ExtremeDrought, in 2024.

The Amazon, sometimes called the '#LungsOfThePlanet,' this year showed signs of further inching toward a much-feared tipping point, threatening the very existence of the world's largest rainforest.

"Rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaged large parts of the Amazon in 2024. The fires and dry conditions were fueled by deforestation and the El Niño weather pattern, and also made worse by climate change, according to the World Economic Forum. 'The number of fires reached its highest level in 14 years this September,' the group reported in October.

"#Drought has also impacted the #AmazonRiver, causing one of the river's main tributaries to drop to its lowest level ever recorded, according to October reporting from The Associated Press. The drop in the river has negatively impacted local economies and #FoodSupplies.

"Andrew Miller, advocacy director at #AmazonWatch, told the AP last week that the fires and droughts experienced across the Amazon in 2024 'could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point.'

"'Humanity's window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open,' he said.

"The Amazon plays a vital role in keeping the planet healthy. 150-200 billion tons of carbon are stored in the Amazon, and it also carries 20% of the earth's fresh water to sea.

"According to the World Economic Forum, if the Amazon tipping point is reached, 'it will release billions of tonnes of #CO2 into the atmosphere through fires and plants dying off. This would further exacerbate climate change and make the 1.5°C goal impossible to achieve. It would also alter weather patterns, which would impact agricultural productivity and global food supplies.'

"A paper published in the journal Nature in February indicates that up to half of the rainforest could hit a tipping point by the middle of the century. 'We estimate that by 2050, 10% to 47% of Amazonian forests will be exposed to compounding disturbances that may trigger unexpected ecosystem transitions and potentially exacerbate regional #ClimateChange,' explained the researchers behind the paper.

"However, it wasn't all bad news out of the Amazon in 2024. According to the AP, the amount of #deforestation in #Brazil and #Colombia declined in this year. In Brazil, which houses the largest chunk of the Amazon, forest loss dropped 30.6% compared to the year prior, bringing it to the lowest level of destruction in nearly a decade.

"The improvement is an about-face from a couple of years ago, when the country registered 15-year high of deforestation during the leadership of former #FarRight President #JairBolsonaro. Brazil is now led by the left-wing President Luiz Inácio #Lula da Silva, who—despite presiding over this drop in deforestation—has also come under scrutiny, as AP noted, by #environmentalists for backing projects that they argue could harm the environment."

Source:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/amazon-rainforest-tipping-point-2024

#ClimateCatastrophe #EnvironmentalEmergency #SouthAmerica #SaveTheForests

#sicilia #sicily #happyisland #isolafelice #italy
#Boschi #Fumo #Rilevatore #PrevenzioneIncendi #SicurezzaAmbientale #ProtezioneForestale #IncendiBoschivi #FirePrevention #RilevamentoFumi #PrevenzioneIncendi #SalviamoIboschi #LoRaWAN #A2NET #Forests #Smoke #Detector #EnvironmentalSafety #ForestProtection #ForestFires #SaveTheForests

Innovazione e sostenibilità per salvare i boschi: la tecnologia siciliana che rileva 86 tipi di fumo e previene gli incendi - Terrà https://terra.regione.sicilia.it/silvanet-i-sensori-antifumo-che-rivoluzionano-la-lotta-agli-incendi-boschivi/

[Thread] What are the main criticisms of the #WorldBank and the #IMF?

Bretton Woods Project - Critical voices on the world bank and IMF

4 June 2019

"World Bank-funded projects have also continually been found to be in direct, serious violation of international human rights standards. Major recurring issues include mass evictions and the forced displacement of peoples and communities for major infrastructure and agricultural projects (see Observer Spring 2015), violations of the rights of indigenous and forest peoples, targeting of human rights defenders, triggering local food insecurity, and serious labour rights violations, such as child and forced labour reportedly being used in Bank-funded projects (see Observer Winter 2016). The IFC has also been shown on several occasions to have invested in companies that avoid or evade taxes (see Observer Autumn 2016). More recently, the Bank has also acknowledged that its projects can create an environment that can foster gender-based violence, including sexual abuse and the spread of HIV/AIDS (see Observer Spring 2017).

"To safeguard against risks like these, the World Bank launched its revised Environmental and Social Framework in 2018, although it applies only to its project lending and not to its DPF.

"Many in civil society remain unconvinced that the safeguards are fit for purpose if the Bank is to deliver on its mandate to implement policies that benefit the poorest, especially as the Bank is set to focus on more complex and difficult environments from 2018."

https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2019/06/what-are-the-main-criticisms-of-the-world-bank-and-the-imf/

#HumanRights #HumanRightsViolations #IndigenousPeoples #ForestPeoples #Exploitation #IMFLoanSharks #CorporateColonialism #CorruptGovernments #BigOilAndGas #BigMining #SaveTheForests

#NemonteNenquimo, #Waorani, Protecting the #AmazonRainforest

By Water for Life, via #CensoredNews, Sept. 21, 2024

"Our friend Nemonte Nenquimo, a leader of the Waorani people of #Ecuador, telling stories from her memoir, 'We Will Be Jaguars.' The book, written with her husband Mitch Anderson, about the fight to protect the Amazon rainforest, is a must read. The conversation was masterfully guided by actor, author, teacher Peter Coyote.

"Nemonte and Mitch have more readings coming up in San Francisco and Corte Madera later this week. New York City is next week!"

From Meet Nemonte Nenquimo:

"Nemonte Nenquimo led an indigenous campaign and legal action that resulted in a court ruling protecting 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil extraction. Nenquimo’s leadership and the lawsuit set a legal precedent for indigenous rights in Ecuador, and other tribes are following in her footsteps to protect additional tracts of rainforest from oil extraction. Guardians of the Amazon Rainforest

Background from the publisher:

"Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest—one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s—Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing.

"She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. At age fourteen, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city.

"Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened.

"Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in #ClimateChange activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against #BigOil, protecting over a half million acres of primary #rainforest. Her message is as sharp as a spear—honed by her experiences battling #loggers, #miners, #OilCompanies and #missionaries.

"In We Will Be Jaguars, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of #AmazonFrontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of #IndigenousPeoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself."

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/we-will-be-jaguars-nemonte-nenquimo.html

#SaveTheForests #SaveTheRainforests #Activism #Memoirs

'We cannot exist if we lose the water': In #Honduras, a community resists a #mine polluting the #RíoGuapinol

"#JuanLópez, representative of the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods, told #RadioProgreso that the activists' next step is advocate for the revoking of Inversiones Los Pinares' mining contracts, the environmental license and the exploitation and exploration permit."

by Soli Salgado
October 18, 2022

TOCOA, HONDURAS - "The Río Guapinol that streams through the Bajo Aguán valley in northern Honduras has long been a source of drinking, bathing, cleaning, irrigation and cooking water for the surrounding community in Tocoa.

"In the last few years, the river has also provided an education: how to resist an international mining operation that they say contaminates the river in the name of development; how to confront a seemingly compromised justice system when that #resistance goes awry; and — for the women in particular — how to become leaders of a movement upon the indefinite imprisonment of their husbands and sons.

"Vilma Cruz raised her five children using the river, including a son who wound up spending almost two and a half years in jail for protesting the mining as part of the #Guapinol8, a group whose 2019 arrests and long detentions drew international outrage.

"'We don't feel at peace because our water has been endangered,' she said. 'Now, when I go to the river, I feel my chest swell, like I'm not free.'

A mine emerges, a community responds

"About a decade ago, #InversionesLosPinares, formerly the Honduran #EMCO Mining Company and based in #Tocoa, applied for a concession to build an iron oxide mine in the protected #CarlosEscaleras #NationalPark. Then-President Juan Orlando Hernández authorized the request in 2013, a decision locals said was made without following protocol of consulting residents of the area.

"The #OpenPit #mining project was upstream of the #RíoGuapinol, a channel that stems from the larger #RíoAguan, a river that flows through tropical mountains from the Atlantic on the northern side of the #CentralAmerican country.

"When the Río Guapinol in 2018 started to turn a chocolate brown, locals took that as a cue to act against Inversiones Los Pinares.

"#GuapinolResiste, the local community's movement in response to the mining, said in a 2020 report that even before mining began, the construction of the facilities and roads had polluted both the Guapinol and #SanPedro rivers, affecting 14,000 residents who rely on the water for consumption and domestic purposes.

"'Losing the river would mean buying water, and you can't buy water for everything,' said Leonel George, who serves on the Municipal Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods, founded in 2018 in response to the mining project.

"The river, he added, is 'closely linked to life and the existence of everything that surrounds us,' noting that the committee's concern goes beyond the effects that contaminated water would have on human beings to the river's surrounding #forests and #biodiversity."

Read more:
https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/justice/we-cannot-exist-if-we-lose-water-honduras-community-resists-mine-polluting-r-o

#JusticeForJuan #GuapinolRiver #WaterDefender #SaveTheForests #DefendTheSacred
#NoMiningWithoutConsent #WaterIsLife #SaveTheRivers #EMCO #InversionesLosPinares
#MunicipalCommitteeForTheDefenseOfCommonAndPublicGoods