Ecuador signs permits for oil drilling in Amazon’s Yasuní national park – Companies could start extracting oil underneath key biodiversity reserve by 2016

By Adam Vaughan    23 May 2014   (theguardian.com) – Drilling for oil in a part of the Amazon rainforest considered one of the most biodiverse hotspots on the planet is to go ahead less than a year after Ecuador’s president lifted a moratorium on oil drilling there. Last August, Rafeal Correa scrapped a pioneering scheme, […]

Note to Olympic sailors: Don’t fall in Rio’s water – ‘It can get really disgusting, with dog carcasses in some places and the water turning brown from sewage contamination’

By SIMON ROMERO and CHRISTOPHER CLAREY18 May 2014 RIO DE JANEIRO (The New York Times) – Nico Delle Karth, an Austrian sailor preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics, said it was the foulest place he had ever trained. Garbage bobbed on the surface, everything from car tires to floating mattresses. The water reeked so badly […]

Brazil laundering illegal timber on a massive and growing scale – ‘Logging in the Brazilian Amazon is absolutely out of control’

By Jonathan Watts and John Vidal    14 May 2014 (theguardian.com) – Illegally logged timber in Brazil is being laundered on a massive and growing scale and then sold on to unwitting buyers in the UK, US, Europe, and China, Greenpeace claimed on Thursday. After a two-year investigation, the environmental campaign group says it has uncovered […]

Ecuador will have referendum on fate of Yasuní National Park after activists collect over 700,000 signatures

By Jeremy Hance16 April 2014 (mongabay.com) – In what is a major victory for environmentalists, campaigners with United for Yasuní have collected 727,947 signatures triggering a national referendum on whether or not oil drilling should proceed in three blocs of Yasuní National Park in Ecuador. The effort started last year after Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa, […]

Death to the Greenies! The message is clear: ‘Get in the way of our profits and we will kill you’

By Captain Paul Watson 16 April 2014 (Facebook) – Being a wildlife conservationist or an environmentalist is now considered one of the planet’s most dangerous occupations. We face very dangerous and powerful vested interests each day. They outnumber us and they are financially and politically connected. They are ruthless and they will deal harshly with […]

More than 900 environmental advocates slain in a decade – Only 10 killers convicted – ‘The convicted tend to have lowest levels of responsibility, such as the getaway car driver. The level of impunity is glaring.’

By DENIS D. GRAY14 April 2014 BANGKOK (AP) – As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff — until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him. […]

Death toll in Valparaiso wildfire rises to 16 – 10,000 residents evacuated, 500 homes consumed – ‘It’s been one of the worst fires in history’

By Nelson Quinones and Matt Smith; with additional reporting by Michael Roa and Ben Brumfield13 April 2014 (CNN) – Chile poured firefighters and police into the battle against a wildfire that swept through hundreds of homes in the Pacific coastal city of Valparaiso, leaving at least 16 dead, according to Chile’s National Emergency Office’s website. […]

Graph of the Day: Precipitation anomalies over South America during the active monsoon season, September 2012 – May 2013

Geneva, 24 March 2014 (WMO) – Temperatures in South America were dominated by hot conditions in most parts of the continent, except for some limited areas in southern Brazil and the north-central and western parts of South America, which had near to colder than average temperatures. A warm October–December period – including the hottest December […]

Global warming spreads malaria to higher altitudes – ‘In Ethiopia, based on the distribution of malaria with altitude, a 1C rise in temperature could lead to an additional three million cases in under-15-year-olds per year’

By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter6 March 2014 (BBC World Service) – Warmer temperatures are causing malaria to spread to higher altitudes, a study suggests. Researchers have found that people living in the highlands of Africa and South America are at an increased risk of catching the mosquito-borne disease during hotter years. They believe that temperature […]

Study links global warming to a Peruvian glacier’s retreat

By JUSTIN GILLISFEB25 February 2014 (The New York Times) – Sitting on a flat volcanic plain 18,000 feet above sea level, the great Quelccaya ice cap of Peru is the largest piece of ice in the tropics. In recent decades, as scientists have watched it melt at an accelerating pace, it has also become a […]

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