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Great White-meat Whale
The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission began today in Japan, with the host nation calling for an end to a 16-year ban on commercial whaling. Japanese Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Tsutomu Takebe urged IWC member nations to regard whales “in the same light as other living marine resources”– that is, edible. Japan argues […]
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Harry Rhodes, Growing Home
Harry Rhodes is executive director of Growing Home, a Chicago-based organization whose mission is to provide job training and employment opportunities in organic agriculture for homeless and low-income people. Monday, 20 May 2002 CHICAGO, Ill. It’s Monday morning and there’s a lot to get organized. As the only full-time employee of Growing Home, I coordinate […]
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There’s the Right Way and the Army Way
Less than three weeks after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended some 150 projects nationwide due to concerns about the accuracy of their economic analyses, the agency announced Friday that it had reviewed all those projects and given the green light for 118 of them to proceed. The speed with which the reviews were […]
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Listen to a Story ’bout a Man Named Jeb
In a move that divided the state’s environmental community, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) signed a law yesterday that will provide millions of dollars of funding to restore the Everglades. On the up side, the law will create a bonding program worth $100 million per year — money that will be matched by federal funds […]
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Smokin’ Reefer
Move over, Great Barrier Reef: Coral researchers recently discovered what they think is the most valuable reef cluster in the world. Known collectively as Raja Ampat, the reefs are located in a remote archipelago off the coast of Indonesia. In the course of a two-and-a-half week expedition there, a survey team recorded 972 species — […]
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The Hunt for Cold October
That’s all fine and dandy for panda bears, but the outlook is grimmer for their northern (non)cousins, polar bears. Polar bears face a number of threats — widespread habitat fragmentation, pollution, excessive hunting — but the most serious menace of all is climate change, according to a report issued yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund. […]
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Barking Up the Right Tree
Apparently spooked by a recent history of devastating floods and blinding sandstorms, China has unveiled a plan to plant trees on almost 200,000 square miles of land in an effort to reverse rampant deforestation. The plan, which Chinese officials call the largest conservation effort ever attempted, will cost an estimated $12 billion over 10 years […]
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Fresh Air
For the first time ever, California’s agriculture sector — the biggest industry in the state — will be required to comply with the federal Clean Air Act, following a settlement reached yesterday by the U.S. EPA and environmental and health advocates. Since 1976, the sector has enjoyed exemptions from some of the act’s most important […]
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Rwandering Fools?
Tragically, education seems to have been insufficient to protect animals in Rwanda, where poachers last week killed two of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas. The poachers were attempting to capture and sell baby gorillas. According to Rwandan wildlife conservation officials, two men killed two female gorillas and trapped one baby gorilla, in the first […]
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Bear With Us
In northwestern Montana, the human population has grown by about 30 percent in the last decade. That’s a problem for some of the region’s other notable inhabitants: grizzly bears. At least half of the grizzlies in the Lower 48 live in northwestern Montana, and as the area becomes more crowded, regrettable bear-human interactions become more […]
