April 16 (NPR) — National Parks Week kicks off Saturday, but the celebration comes at a rough time for National Parks. Harried by federal funding cuts and urban development, the nation’s park system is also facing the rising threat of climate change. Those effects are becoming most visible in Yellowstone, one of the best known […]
By LESLIE KAUFMANPublished: April 15, 2011 Weeks after he was sworn in as governor of Maine, Paul LePage, a Tea Party favorite, announced a 63-point plan to cut environmental regulations, including opening three million acres of the North Woods for development and suspending a law meant to monitor toxic chemicals that could be found in […]
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 […]
April 14 (Coastweek) – The Mountain Bongo (Tragelaphus eurycerus isaaci) is on the edge of extinction mainly due to genetic factors, predation, disease, and forest habitat threats. This has been confirmed by both the Director of Kenya Wildlife Service Julius Kipng’-etich and Dr Jake Veasey, Co-ordinator for Bongo, IUCN Antelope Specialist Group. A recent joint […]
Caption by Holli Riebeek6 April 2011 Intense rain triggered widespread landslides in southern Thailand during the last week of March 2011. This photo-like image shows some of the slides in the forested hills of the Krabi province on the western side of the Malay Peninsula. The freshly exposed brown earth and swollen muddy rivers stand […]
While industrial disturbances have to date been largely concentrated in the south, expansion northward continues. According to a new report by the Pew Environment Group, Canada’s boreal forest contains the world’s largest and most pristine freshwater ecosystem on Earth. A Forest of Blue: Canada’s Boreal Forest, the World’s Waterkeeper Technorati Tags: deforestation,Canada,North America,freshwater depletion,biodiversity,habitat loss,ecosystem […]
By Ruth Dasso Marlaire, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.29 March 2011 A new NASA-funded study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of the forests in the vast Amazon basin in South America caused by the record-breaking drought of 2010. “The greenness levels of Amazonian vegetation — a measure of its health — decreased […]
24 March 2011 (Survival International) – Tribespeople in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, say the 30-year rule of Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has ‘raped’ their land, destroyed their rainforests and brought ‘hardship and suffering’. This Saturday, March 26, will mark Taib Mahmud’s 30th anniversary as head of the rainforest state. Malaysia’s longest-serving Chief […]
An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters. Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in spiders webs. People […]
At 197 million acres, the surface area of Canada’s boreal lakes and rivers alone are larger than all but 36 countries. According to a new report by the Pew Environment Group, Canada’s boreal forest contains the world’s largest and most pristine freshwater ecosystem on Earth. A Forest of Blue: Canada’s Boreal Forest, the World’s Waterkeeper […]
