Like pandas? Want to be a panda caretaker? Apply to become a Pambassador at the Chengdu Panda Base in China! Yao Ming and WildAid are helping find the right person. Maybe it’s you!
Being a PAMBASSADOR is probably as awesome as the word itself.
China’s Shark Fin Soup Ban Draws Contrasting Reactions on Weibo, Twitter
Users of Chinese and Western social media speak out on an announced ban on consumption of shark fin soup at Chinese government banquets.
Read full story here.
[Quote from story]… Reactions on China’s microblogs have been far more vocal — amassing some tens of thousands of posts in one day, most of them very cynical.
“Shark fin is only one dish in the range of exotic delicacies in China. There are still bear paws, armadillos, birds’ nests, and monkey brains,” posted 老缅翡翠.
Lavish government spending on delicacies was also a great concern. 此时此刻Sun: “When they eat such delicacies as bird nests, they are eating from the blood and sweat of the people!”
Still, others were confused why it would take three years to implement the policy. 吕N帆
posted: “Why the heck would it take three years? Are you trying to eat the sharks into extinction before then?”
Some bloggers thought the policy won’t be enforceable, since there is so little oversight on government officials, especially on what they eat. 口香榶: “Whether they eat it or not, nobody can tell! What a farce.”
Still, others pretended the announcement actually was a farce — as Curious_蒋 wrote, “Okay we’ll stop eating shark fins. Just use them to rinse and gargle.”
- Glad to see these reactions coming out of China’s microblogging site, Weibo. Not because they’re cynical, because that all might be true, but because people are actually talking about shark fin, and having opinions on it, and not just accepting it as cultural tradition. For me at least, it’s a rare, albeit very limited (and media selected) insight into what today’s Chinese citizen thinks about the issue.
Shark Fin off the menu at Chinese Government banquets? Yes please.
Shark fin soup will likely be banned from official banquets in about three years, according to the Government Offices Administration of the State Council, reported the China Network Television yesterday.
The administration said the ban on shark fins at State functions is likely to take three years to implement but could be done in one or two years if proper conditions prevail.
The administration was responding to a proposal by 30 National People’s Congress deputies who called for shark fin to be taken off the menu at official banquets during this year’s “two sessions.”
NPC delegate, Ding Liguo, also proposed at last year’s meeting that the country should outlaw the trading of shark fin in an effort to maintain the ecological balance of the world’s oceans.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on the other hand has ruled that publically funded official banquets “must not include exorbitant food materials and endangered species such as shark fin,” Tsang Tak-sing, secretary for Home Affairs of Hong Kong, said in May last year.
MAAMB: This might be just one step, but it’s a big one for the Chinese government. This might take three years to come into play, but it’s a move that will drastically raise awareness and set precedent for the whole country. And that’s pretty damn cool.
Three people were arrested after a large cache of wild animal parts was intercepted in Nanning, capital of southern China’s Guangxi Provinc, including 343 frozen pangolins, 141 black bear palms (from at least 43 bears), 37 frozen big-headed turtles, and 20kg of suspected black bear meat. According to officers, the body parts would have been sold on the local black market with the estimated value of 20m yuan Photograph: Quirky China News / Rex Features/Quirky China News / Rex Features
(via discoverynews)
Eastern Himalaya Mountains, southwest China
Imagine what it might be like to soar over the Himalayas. Here’s an image of what you might see — what the USGS calls the snow-capped peaks, ridges and major rivers of southwest China. This photo was taken on April 12, 2001.
The Himalayas are a vast mountain range in Asia that run along the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. Due to climate change, a enormous amount of snow cover is melting. Experts say this snowmelt will threaten about 1 billion people.
The “Plastic Waste-to-Fuel System” is designed to provide a practical and cost effective solution to plastic waste management with energy regeneration. A prototype machine can process three tonnes of plastic waste into 1,000 litres of fuel oil per day…
More pictures here.
Chinese Students hold up a globe during a campaign to mark World Earth Day, April 22.
