By Fred Pals30 January 2013 (Bloomberg) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s biggest oil company, isn’t liable in four out of five claims bought by Nigerian farmers for pollution, a Dutch court ruled. The company’s local venture must pay compensation in one case. “Shell Nigeria has been sentenced to pay damages in one of […]
29 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – NASA satellites picked up signals of extensive potential deforestation in Sumatra, Borneo, Central Africa, the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon, the Chocó in Colombia and Ecuador, and the Chaco region of Paraguay between October 1 and December 31, 2012, according to the latest update on Mongabay.com’s Global Forest Disturbance Alert System […]
By Jeremy Hance28 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – According to Susan Kelly, koalas have become “urban refugees,” under siege by expanding cities that bring with them deforestation, dogs, traffic, and other ills for native wildlife. Director of Global Briefing, and writer, producer and director of the new documentary Koala Hospital, Kelly has spent 3 years working […]
By Jeremy Hance24 January 2013 (mongabay.com) – When Typhoon Bopha, also known as Pablo, ran ashore on Mindanao, it was the largest tropical storm ever to hit the Philippine island. In its wake, the massive superstorm left over 1,000 people dead and 6.2 million affected, with officials saying illegal logging and mining worsened the scale […]
MANILA, Philippines, 25 January 2013 (ABS-CBNnews.com) – Two crane ships from Singapore are arriving before the end of the month to extract the USS Guardian from Tubbataha Reef in Palawan, the Philippine Coast Guard said Friday. “They are waiting for two ships with heavy cranes that will be coming from Singapore and then they will […]
MANILA, Philippines, 23 January 2013 (ABS-CBNnews.com) – The US Navy minesweeper ship USS Guardian damaged at least 1,000 square meters of coral reefs in Tubbataha Reef in Palawan when it ran aground Thursday, according to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG). Lt. Cmdr. Armand Balilo, spokesman of the PCG, said the estimated damage was based on […]
By Craig Brown21 January 2013 (Common Dreams) – The US Navy minesweeper that smashed into the World Heritage-listed coral reef off the Philippines coast last week ignored warnings to avoid the area, according to a Philippine government official. The comments from the superintendent of Tubbataha Marine Park, Angelique Songco, added to growing anger in the […]
By Tim Barlass20 January 2013 The impact of the Coonabarabran fires is revealed in a startling new map obtained from the Rural Fire Service. Overlaying the heritage-listed Warrumbungle National Park with the area devastated by fire shows the nature reserve to be almost obliterated. Only a small area in the south-west of the park, the […]
Bremerhaven, 15 January 2013 (AWI) – The Arctic sea ice has not only declined over the past decade but has also become distinctly thinner and younger. Researchers are now observing mainly thin, first-year ice floes which are extensively covered with melt ponds in the summer months where once metre-thick, multi-year ice used to float. Sea […]
Contact: Alan Buis, Alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov, 818-354-0474 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California17 January 2013 PASADENA, California (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – An area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of California continues to suffer from the effects of a megadrought that began in 2005, finds a new NASA-led study. These results, together with observed recurrences of droughts […]
