Latest Articles

West Virginia activist Julia Bonds takes on mountaintop-removal mining

The ancient mountains of Appalachia are corrugated with deep, narrow valleys, some of them no wider than a football field. Coal-mining families, who have lived in these valleys for generations, are now being driven out of their homes by the latest innovation of the very industry that has sustained them for so many years. That […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Wild Thing, I Think I Lost You

In a major blow to wilderness advocates in Utah and around the country, the Bush administration on Friday announced its intention to suspend new wilderness reviews of federal lands in the West and to remove protections from nearly 3 million acres in Utah that had been under consideration for wilderness status. The Interior Department, in […]

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 […]

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 […]

Brand New Mexico

And in very good news for enviros in New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson signed into law yesterday a measure designed to increase the amount of open space in the state. The Land Conservation Incentives Act will allow taxpayers — whether individuals or corporations — to deduct from state taxes half of the value of any […]

Haunted House

The U.S. House of Representatives gave environmentalists plenty of headaches yesterday. First, House members backed oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as part of broad legislation designed to increase domestic energy production and provide tax incentives to the oil and power industries. Some see the move as beating a dead horse, since the […]

Earth Island of the Blue Dolphin

In better news for enviros, a federal judge has upheld the existing definition of “dolphin-safe” tuna, thwarting an effort by the Bush administration to relax the term to include tuna caught by methods that can harm marine mammals. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson noted in his ruling yesterday that the administration’s efforts to change the […]