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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Andy Driscoll, Citizens Alliance for a Safe Environment

Andy Driscoll, a writer and communications consultant in St. Paul, Minn., is a founding organizer of Citizens Alliance for a Safe Environment (The CASE). Monday, 13 May 2002 ST. PAUL, Minn. July 2001: It’s decided. We’re going to take legal action. Here’s why: With nary a question nor an environmental impact statement, the Minnesota Pollution […]

Go Get ’em, Tigers

The world’s largest mangrove forest, Sundarban, spans the border between Bangladesh and India, but the countries don’t have a joint plan to manage the 3,700-square-mile area. The United Nations is hoping to change that. Two U.N. entities, the International Partnership Fund and the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, are providing funding to help Bangladesh and […]

Watch ‘Em Blow, See ‘Em Glow!

Bloomsday Doomsday

Ah, a lovely rolling meadow in springtime bloom. What could possibly be more British — or more endangered? Flower meadows in the U.K. are declining at an alarming rate, putting some species at risk, according to a survey of eight English counties conducted by Wildlife Trusts, an organization that manages 2,400 nature reserves in the […]

The Netherlands tackles nitrogen pollution with a game

Confess: You’ve played more than one hand of solitaire on company time. Tetris anyone? Maybe you’ve even been a MYSTic or a QUAKEr. If you happen to work for the Dutch Ministry of the Environment, playing computer games is now part of your job description. Or at least playing a computer game — the world’s […]

Fire Walk With Me

Fires being deliberately set all across Africa are having a dire effect on the continent’s ecosystems, a wildlife expert warned during a recent U.N. Environment Programme conference on African mountains. Many different groups are responsible for setting the fires, said Kenya Wildlife Service warden Bongo Woodley. These include arsonists hoping the government will give them […]