Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing in Moscow by Lidia KellyST. PETERSBURG, RussiaSat Mar 27, 2010 10:22am EDT Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government’s January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill. Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the […]
By now, most of us are aware that there is a large patch of floating plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. What you may not know is that it’s not made up of plastic bags and empty bottles. It’s made up of billions of tiny pieces of plastic, and it’s basically invisible unless […]
By BRIAN SKOLOFF (AP) WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. The idea positively scares them. Coral reefs are part of the foundation of the ocean food chain. Nearly half the fish the world eats make their […]
By John Platt The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) this week decided not to create any new international trade restrictions to protect five endangered shark species, all of which are highly prized for their use in the Chinese delicacy known as shark fin soup, or as I […]
By BRIDIE SMITHMarch 25, 2010 THE world’s southernmost coral reef is on a knife edge, according to scientists who say this summer’s above-average water temperatures have left Lord Howe Island’s unique reef stressed and bleached. In parts of the reef, especially areas around the island’s lagoon, up to 95 per cent of corals have been […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comMarch 23, 2010 The Jakarta Post reports that, according to the local NGO People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries (Kiara), Indonesia’s has lost 2.2 million hectares of mangroves in less than thirty years, going from covering 4.2 million hectares in 1982 to just 2 million hectares today. Kiara’s Secretary General M. […]
“The stream was 50 meters from our house and chemicals were dumped into it. Oh, it stank! The water ran like a natural stream, but it was warm toxic waste water. We had headaches, dizziness, stomachaches…. Our children loved to fish and swim in the river. They came home covered in crude. We fried the […]
Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Kevin Liffey KAMPALA (Reuters) – Pollution in parts of Lake Victoria is worsening so fast that soon it may be impossible to treat its waters enough to provide drinking water for the Ugandan capital, a senior official said Monday. The lake, east Africa’s largest by area, also supplies water […]
By Alister Doyle in Oslo (Reuters) – A U.N. conference rejected on Sunday trade restrictions on red and pink corals used in jewelry in what environmentalists called a new setback for endangered marine species. Delegates at the 175-nation meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha failed to back a […]
By Doug ChadwickPhotograph by Joel Sartore …Lakes, swamps, and rivers make up less than 0.3 percent of fresh water and less than .01 percent of all the water on Earth. Yet these waters are home to as many as 126,000 of the world’s animal species, including snails, mussels, crocodiles, turtles, amphibians, and fish. Almost half […]
