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An Aboriginal elder battles construction of a radioactive-waste dump in Australia
In the 1950s and ’60s, the British military conducted a dozen full-scale nuclear tests in the desert of southern Australia. To the military, the region was a wasteland, the best possible place for such a project; to the Aboriginal people who had lived in the desert for millennia, the land was their home. Eileen Kampakuta […]
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Can’t See the Trees, Either
Spring is here, and all across the country, the first pale green leaves are appearing on trees. But if you live in an urban area, you may be lucky to see such a sight: During the past 15 years, the quantity of trees in many U.S. cities has dropped by almost a third, while paved […]
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Von Hernandez sparked a mass movement to keep trash incinerators out of the Philippines
The industrialized world is fond of exporting its problems: its toxic waste, its low-paying jobs, its most incorrigible mining and logging companies. Von Hernandez, the coordinator of Greenpeace International’s Toxics Campaign in Asia, says “dirty technology” — especially large-scale waste incineration — is also being shipped away to developing countries. On April 14, Hernandez was […]
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Mining Gets the Shaft
The pay dirt has run out for gold miners in California. Last week the state mining board okayed the nation’s toughest regulations on open-pit metallic mining, requiring companies to refill mining pits and flatten waste piles in order to restore the landscape to at least some semblance of its pre-mining state. The industry complains that […]
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Nigerian activist Odigha Odigha fights to halt illegal logging
In southeastern Nigeria, private logging companies are felling the country’s last remaining rainforests. These hardwood forests shelter the highest diversity of primates in the world and some 20 percent of the planet’s butterfly species. Odigha Odigha. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. Odigha Odigha grew up in and around these forests, in the Ijagham community of Cross […]
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Interviews with the 2003 winners of environmentalism’s greatest honor
These are dark times for grassroots activists. Just weeks ago, President Bush dismissed millions of anti-war protesters as little more than a “focus group” — a group whose opinions he was determined to ignore, and did. But the indifference of the world’s sole superpower is only one of the obstacles facing activists. Today’s problems are […]
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Joel Sisolak, Friends of the Cedar River Watershed
Joel Sisolak is executive director of Friends of the Cedar River Watershed in Seattle, Wash. Monday, 14 Apr 2003 SEATTLE, Wash. This past weekend was relatively quiet. I had time to avoid my spring cleaning, relax with a book, and play ultimate Frisbee. I did make one trip out to North Bend, Wash., to speak […]
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Battle Dreary
Kashmir, once renowned for its lush landscape and abundant wildlife, has for decades served as a battle zone between India and Pakistan, and all the turmoil has taken a heavy toll on the region’s environment as well as its people. “Cross-border bombardment is damaging the forests and wildlife beyond imagination,” said Farooq A. Niazi, head […]
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Crop Rotation
Iowa may soon play host to the world’s largest wind farm, after Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) on Friday signed a measure that removes regulatory hurdles to clear the way for the project. MidAmerican Energy Co. expects to start construction in September of a 200-turbine facility in northern Iowa that would pump out 310 megawatts of […]
