Environment

Activists Fight U.S. Aid to Develop El Salvador’s Pacific Coastline

By Edgardo Ayala
Community leaders in El Salvador are opposed to the government's plans to use U.S. aid funds to develop the country’s Pacific coastline, on the grounds that it would threaten the environment in a vast area.

Leave It in the Ground, Climate Activists Demand

By Stephen Leahy
Nearly 70 percent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal must remain in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change. So why did the energy industry spend 674 billion dollars in 2012 looking for more?

Greeks Fight Canadian Gold-Diggers

By Apostolis Fotiadis
Any sense of tranquility that hangs around the mountain of Skouries in northern Greece, 80 km east of Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki, is a façade. Home to some of the oldest forests in Greece, the pristine region is now a battleground, as the local population takes on the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold Corporation and its local subsidiary, Hellas Gold.

U.S. Cities Joining Push to Dump Fossil Fuel Investments

By Carey L. Biron
Nearly a dozen U.S. cities have announced their interest in withdrawing municipal investments from fossil fuel companies, joining a fast-growing movement among colleges and universities that supporters say is allowing citizens concerned with environmental degradation and global climate change to act in lieu of federal action from the U.S. Congress.

Cell Phones Yes, Toilets No, World Body Laments

By Thalif Deen
Speaking of the widespread sanitation crisis, U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson was quick to produce staggering numbers: of the world's seven billion people, about six billion have mobile phones but only about 4.5 billion have access to toilets.

Carbon Credits Could Finance Improved Cookstoves in Mexico

By Emilio Godoy
Environmental organisations in Mexico are hoping to finance the promotion of fuel-efficient wood-fired cookstoves, which reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, through the sale of carbon credits on the voluntary market.

Come Grab Our Land

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
Bordered by a rubber plantation in the west, a forestry plantation in the east and a palm oil farm in the south, the 18 local communities that live in Ocean Division, southern Cameroon, have had an uphill struggle for the rights to their land. 

U.S. Proposal Would Require Labelling on Genetically Modified Foods

By Carey L. Biron
A decades-long push to require the labelling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients in the United States received a significant boost Wednesday, when bipartisan bills on the issue were simultaneously proposed in the House and Senate.

Krill Super-Trawlers Pushing Penguins Toward Extinction

By Stephen Leahy
Everyone loves penguins, but few will know that Thursday is World Penguin Day. Fewer still are those who know penguins are threatened with extinction by climate change and giant fishing trawlers from Europe and Asia stalking the oceans around Antarctica.

Caribbean Tourism Stakes Salvation on Greener Policies

By Desmond Brown
Tourism, widely regarded as the mainstay of Caribbean economies, is being challenged to remain sustainable in an era of climate change and its impact on beaches, rivers and other attractions.

U.S., Others Wrangle over Future Arctic Governance

By Joe Hitchon
With climate change rapidly opening up new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction across the once permanently frozen Arctic, the United States and other northern countries are being compelled to re-examine their policies, both national and collective, towards this region of growing geostrategic importance.

U.S. Regulator Lodges “Environmental Objections” to Keystone Plan

By Carey L. Biron
Advocacy groups here are applauding the publication of new government concerns, formally expressed Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over a recent assessment of the environmental impact of a major oil pipeline that would run between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Mining and Logging Companies “Leaving Chile without Water”

By Marianela Jarroud
More than 100 environmental, social and indigenous organisations protested Monday in the Chilean capital to demand that the state regain control over the management of water, which was privatised by the dictatorship in 1981.

Iceland Project Plays Dice With Nature, And Loses

By Lowana Veal
Since the controversial Karahnjukar dam in East Iceland was brought into operation in 2006, conditions in the downstream Lagarfljot lake have become much worse, according to information gathered by the energy company Landsvirkjun. Some of the changes are irreversible, scientists say.

Poachers Close in on Last Rhino Retreat

By Ranjita Biswas
The year 2013 opened on a disastrous note for the one-horned rhinoceros of the northeastern Indian state of Assam. At the beginning of April, officials in the Kaziranga National Park (KNP), one of the last retreats left in South Asia for these endangered creatures, reported that 17 rhinos had been poached.

Activist Shareholders Slam Brazilian Mining Giant

By Fabíola Ortiz
Representatives of social movements and communities affected by Brazilian mining company Vale's operations have bought shares in the company, to make their voices heard.

Mexico Lacks Water to Frack for Shale Gas

By Emilio Godoy
Mexico plans to expand shale gas exploration this year, but it could run into a shortage of water, which is essential to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the method used to capture natural gas from shale rocks.

Backing a Legal Rhino Horn Trade

By Brendon Bosworth
In the face of rampant rhino poaching in South Africa, some conservationists and private rhino farmers are lobbying for removal of the international ban on rhino horn trading and the creation of a legal market, to quell poaching.

U.S. Kiobel Decision Bucks 30 Years of Precedent

By Joe Hitchon
The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit against the Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum Company brought by alleged human rights victims.

World Bank, IMF Link Urbanisation with Development

By Carey L. Biron
Two of the world’s largest multilateral institutions have released new data linking greater urbanisation with higher levels of human development, and are announcing that they will place greater priority on issues of urbanisation in coming decades.

Time to Decolonise the World Social Forum

By Justin Hyatt
When participants at the 2011 World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal, received word that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had stepped down, swept away by a wave of popular resistance that brought millions of Egyptians into the streets, few could contain their joy.
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