An unwelcome pet - A cobra in the garden

In Brazil and particularly in the Amazon region the word: cobra is used for snake. Any snake is called cobra, whatever the scientific or popular name. A snake is a cobra and a cobra is a snake. Period. So the cobra is going to town. The deforestation of the Amazon causes an invasion of cobras in the neighbourhoods of Belém, according to Ibama, the governmental environment institute. Only this year already 21 cobras are reported by the citizenry, while last year an average of 2 reports per month came in.

Up till now no venomous snake has been caught, although they found species of some 3 meter long. Imagine the fear of the people to step into their garden with the chance to stand eye to eye with a 3 meter long cobra ready to attack. According to Ibama, the infiltration of cobras in the town is a direct result of the illegal deforestation activities in the areas around Belém.

"The deforestation destroys the habitat of the snakes and they move into town", declares a spokeswoman for Ibama. After they have caught the cobras Ibama brings them to local zoological gardens or places them back into the natural habitat of ecological reservations.

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Your Languedoc Wine is Sailing - "Carried by Sailing Ship, a Better Deal for the Planet"

This month 60.000 bottles of wine from the southern Languedoc region in France are shipped to Dublin in Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 8.324 kg (18,375 lb) of carbon, an estimated 140 grams (4.9 oz) of carbon per bottle, compared to a regular shipment. The 52-metre (170-feet) three-mast barque Belém, which was launched in 1896 to bring cocoa and sugar from Belém, the capital of the state Pará and the gateway to the Amazon in Brazil, to France, is the last French merchant sailing vessel built, and will sail into Dublin after a voyage from Bordeaux of about four days.
The wines will be delivered to Bordeaux by barge using the Canal du Midi and Canal du Garonne which run across southern France from Sete in the east, via Beziers in the Languedoc, where the wines will be collected.

Each bottle carries a label with a stylised ship logo and the slogan, "Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet".
The greenness of the project does not stop however with the delivery of the wines.
The ship will bring back to France an equivalent tonnage of crushed glass for recycling into wine bottles at two factories, one in Bordeaux and one in Beziers, probably resulting in cheaper bottles and a better supply given the current problems some vineyards have trying to get enough bottles.

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