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Bitter Sweet

Two years of wrangling and two days of intensive, closed-door negotiations ended in compromise yesterday when the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists agreed to allow limited logging of burned timber in Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest. Under the terms of the agreement, the USFS will begin logging about 14,770 burned acres; in exchange, it will not […]

War and Peas

War is hell — and not just for human beings. A team of researchers from the U.N. Environment Programme is headed to Afghanistan to measure the ecological damage of decades of war, drought, famine, and more war. The study, which is part of a relatively new trend of analyzing the effects of human conflict on […]

Manta Rey

Following the blueprint for charter schools, which seek to bypass the bureaucracy of public schools and enhance local control, the Bush administration will ask Congress to approve a new system of “charter forests.” The forests would be federally owned, but managed by a local trust. In other words, certain parts of existing national forests would […]

A Bunch of Hot Air?

In an apparent effort to patch its shabby environmental reputation at home and abroad, the Bush administration is preparing a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The final version won’t be available until next week, but proposals include scrapping fixed emissions targets in favor of “emission intensity” targets, which would fluctuate in tandem with economic […]

Memolition Derby

A draft report of the Bush administration’s energy policy was heavily criticized last year by a senior U.S. EPA official for blaming energy shortages on environmental regulations, according to a confidential memo released today by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). In a note to the Energy Task Force, which was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, […]

What Sumatra You?

The Tesso Nilo forest on Sumatra, Indonesia, contains more biological diversity than the Amazon. It is home to elephants, tigers, gibbons, and tapirs, and a recent survey conducted by scientists from the World Wildlife Fund found as many as 218 vascular plant species in just 0.05 acres. But the entire forest could disappear in less […]

When Methanol’s Said and Done

In the first-ever legal challenge to a U.S. environmental measure mounted under the North American Free Trade Agreement, a Canadian company is contesting California’s ban on the gasoline additive MTBE. The state began phasing out the chemical compound because of its apparent threat to water quality and human health, but the Methanex Corp., the world’s […]

Civic Virtue

For the first time ever, consumers will be able to buy a hybrid version of a popular car model — the much-beloved Honda Civic. Environmentalists, industry analysts, and even other automakers say that consumer response to the 2003 Honda Civic gas-electric hybrid, which gets about 51 miles to the gallon at highway speeds and recharges […]

Mah-agony

No, it’s not an anti-abortion campaign: This Operation Rescue is an attempt to save Brazil’s mahogany trees from the chainsaw. The nation has launched a “war” to recover an estimated $16 million worth of the valuable wood before it is shipped abroad, and to set up road and river patrols to block smuggling routes. The […]

Wolfing It Up

Maybe it’s Manifest Destiny — or maybe it’s just the instinct of all creatures to return to their home. Whatever the reason, the gray wolf, once exterminated from Northern California and southern Oregon, is slowly making its way westward from the Rockies. As its arrival becomes ever more imminent, battle lines are being drawn. Defenders […]