Haiti has the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere, and its vulnerability to natural disasters, hurricanes and earthquakes, further jeopardize their safety. This, in addition to a lack of access to quality health care, puts Haiti's residents at high-risk for malaria, a disease that kills one million people each year around the world.

Within the past few years, the media has been full of sobering, frightening and occasionally nauseating articles decrying a planetary scourge of plastic ocean trash. Disturbing images accompany the stories. Albatross carcasses stuffed with colored bits of toothbrushes and bottle caps; dolphins hopelessly tangled in derelict fishing nets; a heart-wrenching picture of a turtle wearing a tiny plastic ring around its grossly misshapen shell like a many-times-too-small cinched-in belt.
By Maggie Romuld

It is not uncommon for many people to live without electricity and sanitation in Africa and other undeveloped countries around the world. Many countries just don't have the money, tools or know-how to construct hydroelectric power.
By Madelyn Lipszyc

Imagine a form of electricity that emits zero carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, at a relatively low cost. Sound like a far-off dream? Think again.
By Melissa Reynolds

HOME ENVIROSENSE

CITY & COMMUNITY EFFORTS

If you are reading a magazine dedicated to finding and supporting green solutions, you probably already try to live a sustainable lifestyle. But as you look back over the past year and look forward to the year ahead, consider whether there is anything you might like to do better.
By Maggie Romuld

An hour's drive away from the nearest metropolis, Kamikatsu is a town nestled among cedar-blanketed mountains on Shikoku Island in Japan. Its residents are engaged in a revolution to set an example to the world. Kamikatsu's 2,000 residents are determined to radically alter their relationship to the environment.
By Karen Stephenson

GLOBAL FRONTIER

BACK TO NATURE

Waste-to-energy incineration technologies have existed for more than 50 years but have become increasingly popular in the last few years due to the interest in sustainable and renewable sources of energy.
By Ashley Bouman

Learning by observing and copying real animal strategies and nature behavior can help solve design challenges and sustainability problems. Biomimicry, a design discipline that studies the best ideas of nature and then copies them, focuses on the improvement in design of products, architecture, household necessities and more.
By Madelyn Lipszyc

GREEN LEADER PROFILE

GS PRODUCT PICKS

When Chico Mendes was murdered on December 22, 1988, he was many things: a husband, a father, a union leader, a rubber tapper and an environmental activist, as well as the voice for sustainable agriculture in Brazil and around the world.
By Melissa Reynolds

Lula Dot's Recycled Book Chandelier

Many books go to waste each year because charities cannot afford to unbind and recycle them properly. Lula Dot has taken to accepting unwanted books from charities and giving them a second life in an interesting way through this chandelier.
By Madelyn Lipszyc

TO YOUR HEALTH

ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT FOR CHANGE

Vinegar is a natural and effective bacteria-fighting agent. Apple cider vinegar contains many vital minerals and trace elements such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, sodium, chlorine, sulfur, copper, iron, silicon and fluorine that are essential for a healthy body.
By Karen Stephenson

Imagine yourself walking through a display of extremely large tree trunks in the centre of a thriving metropolis, completely out of their natural element, typically discarded because the roots are useless. These remains may remind you of tangled up pieces of rope, or a visually stimulating statement about conservation. What kind of feelings would this evoke? What would it make you think about?
By Ashley Bouman

BOOKS FOR THOUGHT

ECO PHOTO & WORD OF THE MONTH

The concept of the earth as a single, living "super-organism" - Gaia, from Greek mythology - originated in 1972 when British geophysicist James Lovelock began to envision the earth as a self-adapting system able to maintain itself in a state of equilibrium.
Reviews by Maggie Romuld

Photo Credit: Jim Lipschutz


pollution prevention — techniques that eliminate waste prior to treatment, such as by changing ingredients in a chemical reaction.