Summary of newsmakers of the previous day – 12.10. 2007

How prevent meat fraud ?

Germany requires to adopt their national system demanding so that an accompanying document would be adjoined in sale of waste from meat production which is not suitable for human consumption but is usable to be processed for feed for animals. It ought to prevent a possibility that a businessman purchases a by-product, e.g. in Northern Germany, he/she will export it in Belgium, and subsequently he/she will deliver again in Germany, now as meat determined for human consumption. Just this was a reason for a scandal which happened in Germany in summer 2007 (see “Scandal due to fraudulent change of meat”). The extent in which meat was falsified in this way is still investigated, however, it was obviously bigger than it was originally seemed (c. 180 t).

Huntsmen and fishermen break law, the state tolerates it

Conservation of nature in the Czech Republic remains often only on paper. Despite the fact that a law forbids to let out non-original kind of animals in the nature, huntsmen and fishermen delivers many kinds in the nature annually which according to experts don’t belong in the Central Bohemia, The state not only watches it but moreover hunting and fishing organizations largely subsidize. Only this year two of them will get almost eight million crowns from them. Hereat, many exotic organisms cause huge damages in the environment and spread uncontrolled. For example huntsmen let out originally Asian Pheasants or Red-legged Partridge from South-West Europe. “They are non-original families, however the state shuts eyes to it, in spite of it is forbidden by law”, Josef Stýblo from the Czech Union for Nature Conservation says.

4th Report on environment in Europe published

EEA: Ministers face a task to secure health environment in the whole European region together. According to new report of the European Environment Agency (EEA) published today development of environmental policy in all-European region is decelerated by insufficiencies in their realization and incompleteness of available information. This report named “Europe’s Environment – The Fourth Assessment” was presented at introductory session of the sixth ministerial conference on process Environment for Europe which took place in Serbian Belgrade under the auspices of the European Economic Commission of the United Nation Organization (EEC UNO).

Don’t take hedgehogs away from the nature, experts warn

To help hedgehogs to survive winter? Excluded! Conservationists discourage lovers of these animals from any help. Just in these days people bring them hedgehogs with a request to take charge of them. They are afraid that the animals will not survive the winter. “Nevertheless, this help can rather harm in many cases”, Pavel Koubek from the association Green Heart warns. Hedgehogs can be seen in this season wandering at the edge of forests, in gardens and town parks. With coming of fall they intensively look for food to build sufficient fat reserves for period of winter sleep. “To be able to sleep till spring, the hedgehog needs to have a weight about half a kilogram before it fells asleep at the beginning of November”, Koubek explains.