By Diana Marcum4 July 2014 TERRA BELLA (Los Angeles Times) – At first they called Fred Lujan a gentleman farmer. The retired barber washed his tractor every night and parked it in the garage, a source of gentle amusement to the veteran growers around him. He called his pistachio trees his babies, his girls, and […]
By Benon Herbert Oluka9 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – Uganda’s Kafu River, which is about 180 kilometers (110 miles) long, is part of a vast chimpanzee habitat that includes Budongo and Bugoma Forest Reserves, as well as several unofficial protected areas. However, this region is losing a significant portion of valuable chimpanzee habitat, with Global Forest […]
By Brett Walton7 July 2014 (EcoWatch) – Lake Mead—America’s largest reservoir, Las Vegas’ main water source and an important indicator for water supplies in the Southwest—will fall this week to its lowest level since 1937 when the manmade lake was first being filled, according to forecasts from the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The record-setting low […]
By Chelsea Matiash8 July 2014 (Wall Street Journal) – Rodrigo Baleia first embarked on a Greenpeace trip to make photographs of the Amazon rainforest in 2000 – and after twelve years and about 218,000 miles of flight documentation, he is still not satisfied with his mission in chronicling the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. “I […]
By Jeremy Hance8 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – In Southern Italy over the weekend, Pope Francis reiterated his view that environmental destruction constituted a sin. Visiting the largely agricultural region of Molise, the pope responded to an address by a local farmer attending university. “I fully agree what has been said about ‘safeguarding’ the earth, to […]
By Antony Gitonga 8 July 2014 NAIVASHA, KENYA (The Standard) – The government has announced plans to supply fodder and water to wildlife in various national parks following adverse weather conditions that has hit parts of the country. The exercise that will be carried out by KWS is meant to save hundreds of wild animals […]
By Brian Brown6 July 2014 VEGA, Texas (NBC News) – While a high-pitched wind rattles the windows, and assaults a flapping, fraying American flag in the front yard, Lucas Spinhirne knows he’s staring into an abyss that many in Texas—and across the world—may be forced to contemplate. The once bounteous quantities of water that flowed […]
By Ariel Mark 20 June 2014 (mongabay.com) – One of humans’ closest relatives, the charismatic orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), has been listed as Endangered by the IUCN since 1986 and its status continues to remain critical. The orangutan population decline on the island Borneo can be attributed to extensive habitat loss caused by agricultural development, in […]
By Julie Cart15 June 2014 Snake River Plain, Idaho (Los Angeles Times) – There’s not much anyone can tell Barry Sorensen about Idaho’s Big Desert that he doesn’t know. Sorensen, 72, and his brother have been running cattle in this sere landscape all their lives, and they’ve weathered every calamity man and nature have thrown […]
7 June 2014 (CBS News) – Southern California is already plagued by a crippling drought and wildfires. Now you can add a legion of seemingly unstoppable beetles to the list of threats facing the region’s forests. They’ve already invaded hundreds of tree species, and they are showing no signs of slowing down. “We have lost […]
