Latest Articles

Sturgeons General Warning

Representatives from more than 150 nations are meeting this week in West Virginia to consider changes to a U.N. treaty protecting endangered species. One hot topic is likely to be the fate of sturgeon, whose populations have fallen between 50 and 70 percent over the last century, in part because of a black market in […]

Peake-achu

As a first step toward reaching their goal of stopping all releases of chemical pollutants into Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia are signing an agreement today to clean up toxic “hot spots” in three tributaries of the bay and to curb the flow of chemicals running into the bay’s watershed. The […]

Hi! My Beloved Country

South Africa announced this weekend that it has been selected to host the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development, a.k.a. the Earth Summit 2002. More than 40,000 delegates will likely attend the conference, which will mark the 10th anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, where world leaders agreed to an agenda for protecting the […]

Bleach Blanket Bingo

U.S. Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta announced four initiatives to help preserve coral reefs yesterday, after a monitoring group released a report saying that 27 percent of the world’s reefs were gone and that 70 percent would be dead by 2050. Mineta’s plan includes creating several “no anchoring” zones for large ships near reefs in the […]

Everglades Super Fresh

President Clinton yesterday signed into law what was the only piece of major environmental legislation passed by Congress this year, a $7.8 billion plan to restore the Florida Everglades over the next 30 year to 40 years. The signing drew an enthusiastic Bush to the White House — that’d be Jeb, the Florida governor. Meanwhile, […]

Flipper Flap

That most coveted and contentious of labels — dolphin-safe tuna — remains before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The Clinton administration wants to relax the labeling standard to allow for tuna caught by purse-seine nets as long as the dolphin caught in the nets are set free. Environmentalists are split […]

Jeff Ruch, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Jeff Ruch is executive director of PEER, a service organization helping federal, state, and local agency scientists, law enforcement officers, land managers, and other professionals uphold environmental values within public service. Monday, 11 Dec 2000 WASHINGTON, D.C. Most days begin with a phone call. This particular call came from an Arizona State Parks naturalist named […]

Eight Years Is Enough

After eight years of often contentious negotiation among environmentalists, Native Americans, and representatives of the mining and logging industries, British Columbia has approved a plan to preserve 5 million more acres of land. The area in northern B.C. connects with the 11 million-acre Muskwa-Kechika preserve and is an important part of a huge wildlife corridor, […]

POP Stars

Delegates from 122 nations reached agreement yesterday on a treaty to ban or reduce the use of 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), chemicals such as PCBs and pesticides that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and genetic abnormalities in humans and wildlife. The ban, which must be ratified by 50 countries to become legally […]

Halt! Who Cuts There?

A federal judge on Friday halted 178 timber sales in western Oregon and Washington and Northern California after finding that they presented risks to threatened and endangered salmon. In issuing her injunction, Judge Barbara Rothstein found that the National Marine Fisheries Service had overlooked its own rules to protect fish when it approved the logging […]