By Martin Hickman11 April 2011 An “upside-down forest” of small trees with deep roots, Brazil’s wildlife-rich outback is home to a 20th of the world’s species, including the spectacular blue and yellow macaw and giant armadillos. Yet this vast wilderness – as big the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together – is being […]
By Lewis Smith12 April 2011 Data released under freedom of information legislation has uncovered what anglers say are “alarming” and “morally indefensible” levels of sea lice infestations at Scottish salmon farms. Official inspections of Scotland’s salmon farms over a two year period recorded 68 cases where levels of sea lice – which can be fatal […]
Caption by Michon Scott12 April 2011 Monsoon rains fall on Pakistan every summer, but the summer of 2010 was extraordinary. A combination of factors, including La Niña and a strange jet stream pattern, caused devastating floods. The Indus River rapidly rose, and a dam failure in Sindh Province sent part of the river down an […]
TOKYO, April 11 (Kyodo) – Japan on Monday expanded evacuation areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the killer earthquake and tsunami a month ago, due to high amounts of cumulative radioactive materials beyond the evacuation zone of a 20-kilometer radius from the plant. The government’s decision comes amid persistent […]
BY SATOSHI OTANI STAFF WRITER10 April 2011 The government plans to prohibit rice planting in fields where the concentration of radioactive cesium exceeds 5,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Friday that the new bans would apply to areas beyond the current 30 kilometer exclusion zone around the stricken Fukushima […]
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press6 April 2011 COYLE, Okla. — In most years, the dark clouds over western Oklahoma in the spring would be bringing rain. This year, they’re more likely to be smoke from wildfires that have burned thousands of acres in the past month as the state and its farmers struggle with a […]
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 08, 2011 – Concentrated waste plumes from fish farms could travel significant distances to reach coastlines, according to a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Environmental Fluid Mechanics, available online now. Roz Naylor, Oliver Fringer and Jeffrey Koseff of the Woods Institute for the Environment at […]
SULAIMANI, Kurdistan, Iraq, April 7, 2011 (ENS) – The Tanjero River, which runs southwest of the city of Sulaimani, was once a sizeable river flowing with clean water, but today it is reduced to a polluted stream filled with sewage, says the environmental group Nature Iraq. Anna Bachmann of Nature Iraq says that a visit […]
ISIOLO/MANDERA, 6 April 2011 (IRIN) – Thousands more heads of livestock have died in Kenya’s arid Northeastern province as La Niña drought conditions worsen and water shortages become more acute. Drought monitoring and assessment reports indicate that the hardest-hit areas are Marsabit, Moyale and Mandera. Livestock farmers in the three regions have lost more than […]
By Mark FischettiApril 4, 2011 SEA IN RETREAT: The surface of the Dead Sea, already 424 meters below sea level, is falling by a meter a year. Jordanians to the east, Israelis to the west, and Syrians and Lebanese to the north are pumping so much freshwater from the Jordan River that almost none reaches […]
