A case brought by Burmese villagers against U.S. oil company Unocal was settled out of court in late March. The company was accused of allowing human rights abuses – including murder, rape and forced labor – to occur during construction of the Yadana oil pipeline in rural Burma (Myanmar) during the 1990s. The settlement came […]
The snow and ice that usually top the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) have virtually disappeared in what geoscientists estimate is the first time in approximately 11,000 years. Environmental activists say the icecap’s loss is a direct result of rising temperatures in recent decades. According to Greenpeace, the damage to Mt. Kilimanjaro is a harbinger […]
Officials from nine Central American countries met last month to work out a plan for looser border regulations – a first step toward operating as a regional unit similar to the European Union. Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama and the Dominican Republic collaborated to change border policies to allow greater freedom in travel and […]
Global warming trends and changes in weather patterns will have disastrous effects across Asia by 2050 unless greenhouse gases are reduced globally, say numerous climatologists and green groups. Citing current weather trends, they predict that, over the next 50 years, rising waters will force residents of many Asian islands to evacuate, water-borne disease will spread […]
Forest department officials in India’s state of Kerela are implanting sandalwood trees with tracking devices in an effort to protect dwindling forests from illegal logging. Once the devices are activated, satellites will be used to monitor forests and detect attempts to cut wood or smuggle timber from forest areas. The trade in contraband sandalwood is […]
European Union fishing policies are directly linked to the extinction of such African wildlife as monkeys, elephants and warthogs, according to findings recently published in Science. The findings, based on a 30-year study of Ghana, show that as fish populations in waters off the country’s western coast drop, residents resort to hunting bush meat both […]
Several years ago, on a solo trek in northern India, I was joined by an eight-year-old boy wearing a tattered red vest. He startled me with a phrase in perfect English: “Excuse me, sir, but what is your hobby?” Startled, I stammered a brief but no doubt incomprehensible reply about astrophotography. The lad took my […]
Preparatory construction activities are reportedly underway on a massive dam project in China’s Yunnan province that will displace local tribespeople and wash away a section of the Yangtze River valley thought to be the location that inspired writer James Hilton’s Shangri-La. The Huaneng Group, China’s largest independent power producer, is managing the project, which has […]
A 15-year ban on the sale of ivory from illegally slaughtered elephants has boosted the popularity of fossil ivory. The ancient tusks of wooly mammoths, elephant-like creatures that lived between 20,000 and 5,000 years ago, have been recovered from sandbars near the Arctic Ocean, where they’d been carried by the Siberian tundra’s melting waters. Mammoth […]
