The gas stored in the Marcellus Shale formation is the subject of desperate drilling to secure US domestic energy supplies. But the process involved – hydraulic fracturing – is the focus of a bitter dispute over environmental damage and community rights. Jim Wickens reports It is a timeless patchwork of small dairy farms and endless […]
Archive | 2010
Clydesdale Bank under fire over finance for Nocton ‘super dairy’
Campaigners claim the bank has refused to state what environmental assessments were carried out before supplying a mortgage – part of a £13-million land deal – to company behind controversial Nocton proposal. Andrew Wasley reports A leading high street bank has come under fire for part-financing the controversial Nocton ‘super dairy’ project which will – […]
Sour milk: undercover inside the US ‘super dairy’ industry
With planning permission for Britain’s biggest dairy at Nocton about to be re-submitted later this month, Jim Wickens travelled to California to examine intensive milk production US-style and found factory farms, conflict, intimidation, pesticides, pollution and small-scale farmers driven out of business… ‘You better get out of here or your gonna get your ass kicked […]
‘Super dairy’ may only meet ‘minimum welfare standards’
Advocates of Britain’s biggest dairy farm, at Nocton, have sold the concept on the basis of its outstanding animal welfare and environmental credentials. But new evidence suggests this may not be possible without public funding. Andrew Wasley reports The company behind the so-called Nocton ‘super-dairy’ has admitted that without taxpayers’ money the controversial mega-farm may […]
Soya investigation to be broadcast in the US
The Ecologist Film Unit-produced “Killing Fields: the Battle to Feed Europe’s Factory Farms” is the latest EFU film to be broadcast in the US by satellite channel Link TV. The hard-hitting film, which investigates the human rights abuses and environmental devastation linked to increasing soya cultivation in Paraguay, will feature in the forthcoming edition of Earth Focus, which carries ”under-publicised stories on how changes to the […]
Revealed: the biofuel sold as “ethical and green”
UK-based investment companies are marketing a controversial biofuel crop as “highly ethical and green” despite it being linked to conflicts over land, food security and growing hunger in developing countries, an investigation by The Ecologist magazine and The Independent has revealed. The brokers have been criticised by environmental and anti-poverty campaigners for selling investments in jatropha because of increasing […]
Church sells stake in Vedanta following Ecologist exposé
The Church of England has sold major holdings in the controversial British-owned mining company Vedanta Resources plc after admitting it has no confidence that the company is respecting the humans rights of local communities in areas of operation. An investigation by The Ecologist magazine and The Independent newspaper last year revealed that the Church was among a host of […]
Ecologist Film Unit 