Latest Articles

East of Eden

After years of foreign control, East Timor became the world’s newest nation this week. Now the country must rise from the ashes wrought by years of brutal domination by Indonesia — and it hopes to do so in part by capitalizing on its abundant natural beauty to attract eco-tourists. Currently, East Timor is the poorest […]

Fatwa Alberta

Canada’s already-tense internal battle over whether to ratify the Kyoto Treaty on climate change heated up further yesterday, when the province of Alberta withdrew from negotiations after its alternative emissions-cutting plan was rejected by the other provinces and territories. In response, Alberta resigned as co-chair of the commission formed to negotiate climate issues and refused […]

Sign of the TIMOs

A major shift is taking place in U.S. timber ownership, and it could have significant consequences not just for the industry but also for ecosystems across the country. Traditionally, the major private owners of forestlands in the U.S. have been forest product companies, but increasingly, such land is being bought by investment groups hoping to […]

New Sue Review

Oral arguments were heard yesterday in the U.S. EPA’s lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power provider. Lawyers for the EPA argued that the TVA violated the New Source Review rule of the Clean Air Act by failing to install state-of-the-art pollution-control equipment when upgrading its older coal-burning power plants. Lawyers […]

Miner Threat

The Bush administration canceled yesterday a two-year ban on new mining claims in roughly 1.2 million acres in and around southern Oregon’s Siskiyou National Forest. The ban was imposed by the Clinton administration in response to lobbying efforts by conservationists, who wanted the area declared a national monument. Instead, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt imposed […]

Schoolhouses Rock!

Is the Ivory Tower built from sustainable materials? Increasingly, the answer is yes. College campuses, long regarded as bastions of left-leaning life, are becoming promoters of sustainable development. Oberlin College recently completed a comprehensive study of how to reduce pollution from its operations, the State University of New York at Buffalo spent $17 million to […]

Catch a Taiga By the Toe

No one needs to tell the Amur tiger that species worldwide are endangered. A resident of Russia’s far-eastern taiga forests, the tigers are severely threatened by insatiable and generally illegal logging in the region. In theory, Russia has some of the world’s strictest logging laws, but the taiga’s old-growth trees (such as Manchurian oak and […]

The Shipping News

Salmon and other imperiled species would not be damaged by a proposed deepening of the Columbia River channel, federal scientists announced yesterday. Those findings — biological opinions required under the Endangered Species Act — will enable the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with the next steps in a $196 million project to deepen […]

Mammal-mia!

Nearly 25 percent of the world’s mammals — more than 1,000 species in total — are in danger of going extinct within 30 years, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme on the state of the global environment. In total, the report identifies more than 11,000 endangered species, including one in eight […]

Yosemite Slam

As the fifth highest waterfall on the planet, Yosemite Falls is one of the world’s most photographed natural wonders — and the area around it is one of the most heavily tromped, trampled, and otherwise degraded. The falls attract about 3 million visitors per year, which has lead to despoiled trails, jam-packed parking lots, and […]