By Grace Livingstone 15 August 2019 SANTIAGO, Chile (BBC News) – Out of habit, Sara Plaza smiles when her photo is taken, but when she talks about what has happened to the land around her home, tears start to run down her face. “There used to be beautiful lagoons down there, with hundreds of flamingos,” […]
21 August 2019 (BBC News) – Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has seen a record number of fires this year, new space agency data suggests. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018. It comes weeks after President Jair Bolsonaro sacked the head of the […]
By Lisa Friedman 12 August 2019 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law credited with rescuing the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction. The changes could […]
By Scott Bronstein, Curt Devine, Drew Griffin, and Ashley Hackett 9 August 2019 (CNN) – The Environmental Protection Agency told staff scientists that it was no longer opposing a controversial Alaska mining project that could devastate one of the world’s most valuable wild salmon fisheries just one day after President Trump met with Alaska’s governor, […]
By Philip M. Fearnside 29 July 2019 (Mongabay) – Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation in June 2019 was 88 percent greater than for the same month in 2018, and deforestation in the first half of July was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July in 2018. There is no reason to question INPE’s current deforestation numbers from the DETER (Detection […]
28 July 2019 (BBC News) – Heavily armed gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in northern Brazil and stabbed to death one of its leaders, officials say. Residents of the village in Amapá state fled in fear and there were concerns violent clashes could erupt if they tried to reclaim the gold-rich land. […]
By Dom Phillips 19 July 2019 BRASÍLIA (The Guardian) – The Amazon belongs to Brazil and European countries can mind their own business because they have already destroyed their own environment, said Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who also described his own government’s satellite data showing an alarming rise in deforestation as “lies”. “You have to understand […]
By Mary Ilyushina 30 June 2019 Murmansk, Russia (CNN) – Next month, a floating nuclear power plant called the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed via the Northern Sea Route to its final destination in the Far East, after almost two decades in construction. It’s part of Russia’s ambition to bring electric power to a mineral-rich region. The 144-meter […]
By Andy Krol 19 June 2019 (Rolling Stone) – It could have been an episode of The Apprentice. On a summer day in 2016, a group of businessmen and women descended on Trump Tower in Manhattan. They exited their black SUVs and rode the golden elevators to the 26th floor, where they assembled in a […]
11 June 2019 (Mexico News Daily) — An environmental activist from Tabasco who worked to preserve the habitat of howler monkeys was found dead yesterday in Chiapas. The body of José Luis Álvarez Flores was found in Calatraba, a community in the municipality of Palenque. The 64-year-old was reportedly shot at least five times. Álvarez […]