By Frances Beinecke28 March 2014 (Washington Post) – Twenty-five years ago this month, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. The public was shocked by photos of oil-soaked otters and reports that coastal residents had lost their livelihoods. The cleanup effort […]
By Jeremy Hance26 March 2014 (mongabay.com) – Just days before Myanmar, also known as Burma, implements a ban on exporting raw logs, the Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA) has released a new report that captures the sheer scale of the country’s illegal logging crisis. According to the EIA, new data shows that 72 percent of logs […]
By Margot O’Neill20 March 2014 The dramatic ongoing loss of Australian animal and plant species has prompted influential scientists to call on governments to start making tough decisions about which ones to save – and which species should be left to face extinction. The proposal to triage Australia’s unique species comes from some of the […]
21 March 2014 (mongabay.com) – A group of prominent scientists chose to mark the second International Day of Forests by urging the world to support an initiative that aims keep wild areas free of roads. Roadfree, an initiative led by Member of the European Parliament Kriton Arsenis, has been growing in prominence over the past […]
By ANNA JOHNSON5 March 2014 (Cornell Daily Sun) – Recent research has found that as tropical temperatures climb as a result of climate change, mountain-dwelling tropical birds are doing the same. While climate change is not a new concept, the study conducted in Papua New Guinea aimed to examine the virtually unexplored question of climate […]
By Gregor Waschinski 9 hours ago Washington (AFP) – On a cold March night 25 years ago, the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. Images of oil-soaked birds and fouled beaches horrified the United States, leading to tighter regulation and […]
By Holli Riebeek18 March 2014 (NASA) – Fire and smoke dominate the landscape in this image of Southeast Asia taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on 18 March 2014. Marked in red, the fires burn largely in the subtropical forests common in northern Indochina. Most fires in this region […]
By Holli Riebeek28 Feb 2014 (NASA) – Dense smoke cloaks central Sumatra, Indonesia, in these images taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. The smoke is coming from fires in Riau province, where palm oil and pulpwood plantations are abundant. Though illegal for all but small landowners, fire […]
By Elisabeth Behrmann 25 February 2014 (Bloomberg News) – Lend Lease Group, Australia’s biggest listed property developer, won’t take part in a planned coal terminal expansion close to the Great Barrier Reef after a mandate for the project lapsed. Lend Lease is no longer part of the AP-X expansion at the port of Abbot Point, […]
By Brian Kahn19 February 2014 (Climate Central) – Arctic sea ice growth has slowed dramatically in recent weeks, thanks in large part to abnormally warm air and water temperatures. Sea ice now sits at record low levels for mid-February. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, as of February 18, sea ice covered […]