August 09, 2011

How Organic?

Your shampoo says organic on the label, which means what’s in the bottle is organic, right? Well, if you’re lucky. In the U.S., an environmental group has filed a lawsuit against 26 cosmetic companies over claims that products were falsely labelled as organic.
The brands include major names such as Jason and Boots, which are accused of violating a California law that requires at least 70 per cent of the ingredients in organic products to be grown without pesticides or chemicals.
In Britain, you might be surprised to learn the laws governing the labelling on organic foods do not extend to beauty products — so a company can describe a product as organic even if it contains only tiny amounts of organic ingredients.


Read more here.

August 08, 2011

UN Day of indigenous people

August 9th is the UN Day of indigenous people. To celebrate, here are 9 little-known facts from Survival about tribal peoples:

1) There are over 100 uncontacted tribes in the world. Some live less than 100km from Machu Picchu, Peru’s biggest tourist attraction.

2) Tribal people in the Baliem valley of New Guinea probably developed agriculture long before the ancestors of Europeans.

3) The Moken ‘sea gypsies’ of the Andaman Sea have developed the unique ability to focus under water, in order to dive for food. The eyesight of Moken children is 50% more powerful than that of European children.

4) The Sentinelese tribe is thought to have lived on the Andaman Islands for about 55,000 years.

5) One in every 6 languages spoken on the planet comes from New Guinea.

6) Tribal peoples developed some of the world’s staple foods. Manioc (cassava), maize and potatoes are all the product of indigenous husbandry.

7) Hadza hunters in Tanzania use the song of an African bird to guide them to bees’ nests in baobab trees.

8) Awá women in Brazil care for orphaned baby monkeys by suckling them.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE ENTRY.

August 07, 2011

Guess who turned 20 yesterday???

Well, she has been around for twenty years now. Who?

CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER WHO IT IS.

Another article worth reading is HERE.