Fall 2009 salmon run ‘may set a new record low’

By MATT WEISER, Sacramento Bee SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Salmon didn’t make the big fall comeback in California’s Central Valley rivers that anglers and nature lovers yearned for, raising the likelihood of a third year of fishing restrictions. Some areas saw more fall-run chinook return from the ocean to the Sacramento River and its tributaries. This […]

Warmer climate could stifle carbon uptake by trees

  (University of Colorado at Boulder) Contrary to conventional belief, as the climate warms and growing seasons lengthen subalpine forests are likely to soak up less carbon dioxide, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study. As a result, more of the greenhouse gas will be left to concentrate in the atmosphere. “Our […]

Kenya tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands

First it was colonists who put the Ogiek on reserves in Mau Forest. After freedom corrupt officials drove them out as they set up farms. Now a reforestation effort has forced them even farther away. By Robyn Dixon, January 4, 2010 Mau Forest, Kenya – For centuries, the little-known Ogiek people foraged wild honey and […]

Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert

Scientists warn of ecological catastrophe across Asia as glaciers melt and continent’s great rivers dry up By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor,  Sunday, 7 May 2006 Global warming is rapidly melting the ice-bound roof of the world, and turning it into desert, leading scientists have revealed. The Chinese Academy of Sciences – the country’s top scientific […]

Namibia's landmark trees dying from climate change

By Brigitte Weidlich (AFP) WINDHOEK — An old man gently touches the trunk of the huge quiver tree with a worried look on his wrinkled face, as he points at several dead branches lying on Namibia’s rugged terrain. “When I was a boy, my grandfather made my first quiver from a branch of this old […]

Loggers invade Kenya forest while government distracted by Mau restoration

By MUCHEMI WACHIRA, Posted Monday, January 4 2010 at 20:00 Loggers have been destroying parts of the Aberdare Forest, one of the country’s five main sources of water. With the Mau Forest being the main focus of attention, conservationists appear to have forgotten the other key sources of water. A spot check by the Nation […]

Kenya: Climate refugees targeted by human traffickers

  By Abdullahi Jamaa, 6 January 2010 Nairobi — A group of young are gathered behind a makeshift structure where they have been living on edge. They have been sitting idle for the some hours. Their discussion returns to poverty, and how to overcome it. Sweat beads on their worried foreheads. Indeed, if there is […]

South Africa dairy area threatened by worst drought in 130 years

By Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg (asguazzin@bloomberg.net)Last Updated: January 6, 2010 08:13 EST Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) — Dairy farms along South Africa’s south west coast, which are among the nation’s most productive, are threatened by the region’s worst drought in 130 years, an industry body said. Farmers in the area between Bredasdorp and Plettenberg bay, towns […]

Video: Bolivia on the global warming frontline

In 1998, scientists predicted that the Chacaltaya glacier above La Paz would have completely disappeared by 2015. Now experts say it will already be gone completely early this year. The 2 million residents of the city of La Paz and its suburb El Alto depend on the surrounding glaciers for some of their water needs. […]

Australia: Too much rain, and not nearly enough

By MALCOLM BROWNJanuary 6, 2010 WAYNE DUNFORD, 59, has copped it both ways – flooded out at his cattle property at Brewarrina and enduring conditions so dry at his home property at Parkes that the small amount of rain he has received since Christmas has been swallowed by the dust. Like many others in the […]

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