By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 10, 2011 Cambodian villagers fighting to save their forest from rubber companies have been rebuked by the local government. Two days in a row local authorities prevented some 400 Cambodian villagers from protesting at the offices of the Vietnam-based CRCK Company, which the villagers contend are destroying their livelihoods by bulldozing […]
Beijing (AFP) March 2, 2011 – China has said that snow and rain in the country’s northern wheat-growing regions over the past week had helped to ease a crippling drought that had sparked fears about rising global food prices. “The drought in most of the country’s winter wheat-growing regions has eased considerably after the widespread […]
By ELISABETH ROSENTHALMarch 9, 2011 TIMBÍO, Colombia — Like most of the small landowners in Colombia’s lush mountainous Cauca region, Luis Garzón, 80, and his family have thrived for decades by supplying shade-grown, rainforest-friendly Arabica coffee for top foreign brands like Nespresso and Green Mountain. A sign in the center of a nearby town proclaims, […]
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor10 March 2011 The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed. Declines in managed bee colonies, seen increasingly in Europe and the US in the past decade, are also now being observed in China and Japan and there are the […]
By Stephanie March8 Mar 2011 The President of Kiribati says an increasing number of coastal villagers are asking to be relocated because of rising sea waters. Anote Tong says Kiribati is in urgent need of funding to build sea walls to prevent sea water destroying villages and crops. President Tong has recently come back from […]
By REBECCA THURLOWMARCH 9, 2011 SYDNEY—The damage done by Cyclone Yasi to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia’s top attraction, will take decades to fully mend, according to a growing number of scientists—which could reduce both visitor numbers and the local fishing industry’s catches. In the worst-hit areas “there was hardly a coral to be found […]
It’s a new name for a new geologic epoch—one defined by our own massive impact on the planet. That mark will endure in the geologic record long after our cities have crumbled. By Elizabeth KolbertPhotograph by Jens Neumann/Edgar RodtmannMarch 2011 The path leads up a hill, across a fast-moving stream, back across the stream, and […]
March 6, 2011, Singapore (AFP) — The unbridled manufacture and use of pesticides in Asia is raising the spectre of “pest storms” devastating the region’s rice farms and threatening food security, scientists have warned. Increased production of cheap pesticides in China and India, lax regulation and inadequate farmer education are destroying ecosystems around paddies, allowing […]
By Rhett A. Butler, www.mongabay.com March 07, 2011 Expansion of industrial oil palm plantations across Malaysia and Indonesia have laid waste to vast areas of forest and peatlands, exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions and putting biodiversity at risk, reports a new satellite-based analysis that maps mature oil palm estates across Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, and Sumatra. The […]
Nairobi — Rising inflation is threatening East Africa Community’s economic growth. From Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and Kampala, all signs point to surging inflation in the region in the coming days. An array of issues from drought to food scarcity to escalating oil prices continue to pile pressure on households’ expenditure. Political crises in […]
