24 June 2014 (Global Oceans Commission) – The main drivers leading to overfishing on the high seas are vessel overcapacity and mismanagement. However, measures to improve management alone will not succeed without solving the problem of overcapacity caused by subsidies, particularly fuel subsidies. Overcapacity is often described as “too many boats trying to catch too […]
By Janaki Lenin15 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – In 1983, Sri Lanka became embroiled in a 26-year-long civil war in which a rebel militant organization fought to establish an independent state called Tamil Eelam. The war took an enormous human toll; unknown numbers disappeared and millions more were displaced. Economic development stagnated in the rebel-held north […]
By Brian Brown13 July 2014 MANHATTAN, Kansas (NBC News) – In America’s Breadbasket, a battle of ideas is underway on the most fundamental topics of all: food, water, and the future of the planet. Last August, in a still-echoing blockbuster study, Dave Steward, Ph.D., and his colleagues at Kansas State University, informed the $15 billion […]
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 […]
12 June 2014 (NOAA) – Parts of the West, especially the southern portions, have been in drought for the last several years, with the PHDI reaching record or near-record low values at times. Time series of precipitation departure show the variation over time (New Mexico, California), while maps of the SPEI show the spatial extent […]
By Alemayehu Bishaw27 June 2014 (census.gov) – The Changes in Areas With Concentrated Poverty: 2000 to 2010 report [pdf] largely compares Census 2000 poverty estimates with those based on the 2008–2012 5-year American Community Survey (ACS). As 2010 represents the midpoint of this period, for convenience the remainder of this report refers to these 2008–2012 […]
24 June 2014 (Global Oceans Commission) – The widespread occurrence of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing is caused by economic incentives enabled through a lack of regulation and enforcement, which result from global governance deficiencies. Each year that it is allowed to thrive, illegal fishing on the high seas is stripping oceans of fish […]
May global temperature reaches record high, driven largely by record warm oceans Note: official monthly data for China were not received in time for inclusion in this analysis. For the purposes of this report, NCDC calculated data for China using daily reports from its GHCN-Daily dataset. When official monthly data are received from China, […]
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 Becky Oskin, Senior Writer14 June 2014 SACRAMENTO, California (LiveScience.com) – Peru’s Amazon rainforest is extensively contaminated from decades of oil and gas drilling, researchers reported yesterday (June 12) here at the annual Goldschmidt geochemistry conference. In the past decade, volatile demonstrations by indigenous groups and tangled lawsuits against oil companies have exposed the toxic […]
