Articles by Grist staff

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut …

Macadamia-nut shells will soon be the source of electricity for more than 1,200 Australian homes. Construction began this week on a biomass cogeneration plant in the northern Australian state of Queensland that will produce renewable energy by burning more than 5,000 tons of shells generated by the nation’s native macadamia nut industry. “This project … […]

Famous Last Birds

The population of California condors is soaring back to relatively healthy numbers. Biologists have counted 222 of the birds, a tenfold increase from 1982, when the species hit its nadir with just 22 condors remaining. “This is the greatest the population has been probably since the 1950s,” said Bruce Palmer, coordinator of the California condor […]

The Anti-Pepsi Generation

Leaders of two rural communities in Kerala, a state in southwestern India, are going head-to-head with Coca-Cola and Pepsi, accusing the companies’ local bottling plants of depleting groundwater and triggering shortages. One village government revoked the water-use permit of a Pepsi plant last week, and another village denied a license renewal to a Coke plant […]

Raising the Zanzibar

The island of Zanzibar, located just off the coast of Tanzania, is set to get its first national park. The island, which is independently governed, plans to convert the 12,355-acre Jozani Forest Reserve into a national park to promote better conservation, management, and natural-resource use, according to Mussa Ame Silima, Zanzibar’s minister of agriculture, natural […]