Category: At Risk

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, August 7, 2017 (ENS) – Hot and dry, the interior of British Columbia is ablaze with wildfires that have driven tens of thousands of residents from their homes and filled the skies over the province with smoke.

There are 125 wildfires burning across the province, and Chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said officials are anticipating thunderstorms with lightning and little rain. With no relief in sight in the weather forecast, B.C.’s wildfire emergency is expected to continue over the next few weeks.

To ensure that adequate resources are available to continue in the fight, more international personnel are on the way.

Over the next week, more than 400 firefighting staff from New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and the United States will join the over 3,800 personnel currently working throughout the province to respond to the ongoing wildfires.

This will be a mix of specialized support staff, including incident management teams, and highly trained and experienced wildland firefighting crews.

They will join over 3,150 personnel from British Columbia as well as over 630 other out-of-province personnel who have been working tirelessly to protect the province’s communities and infrastructure.

These firefighters are trained to the standards of the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The cost of bringing in the international personnel will be covered by the Province of British Columbia.

The hot, dry weather conditions have caused a high-to-extreme fire danger rating throughout B.C. Firefighting crews are on standby in all six of B.C.’s fire centers in preparation for an anticipated increase in fire starts over the next few days due to unsettled weather in the forecast that may bring lightning.

BC Parks, in co-ordination with the BC Wildfire Service and Recreation Sites and Trails BC, closed backcountry access to some areas of Wells Gray Provincial Park, effective Saturday, August 5, to help protect public safety.

Members of the public will still have access to most of the major day-use sites in the highway corridor through the park, plus campgrounds and marine campsites. All other areas of the park are now closed to public access indefinitely.

This partial closure is being implemented to reduce the number of people in the park, since locating and safely evacuating the numerous users who visit the park each day would be extremely difficult in an emergency situation, officials say.

Supervised, commercially guided groups will continue to have access to the park unless conditions deteriorate further.

This year to date, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre reports that 886 fires have consumed 591,227 hectares across the province.

The extreme wildfire situation is testing British Columbia’s new provincial government, alliance of the New Democratic Party and the Green Party headed by Premier John Horgan, which took office on July 18.

Premier Horgan has pledged his ongoing support for the people and communities affected by wildfires. “When we face difficult times, people and communities come together to help each other. Our government is stepping up our support of the people affected by the devastating wildfires in the B.C. Interior,” he said.

Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, said, “Given the unprecedented nature of the B.C. wildfires, we appreciate the assistance our international partners are able to provide.”

The Province has extended the state of emergency to ensure a coordinated response to the wildfires, and has committed to provide ongoing direct financial support to evacuees.

The current one-time $600-per-household funding will be renewed every 14 days on an ongoing basis until evacuees return home.

Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, said, “Sadly, as the effects of climate change take hold, events like the wildfires displacing so many British Columbians are becoming increasingly common. 2016 was the warmest year on record, and 2015 and 2014 were the second and third warmest. Science is clear that as global temperatures rise, the incidence of extreme weather events is increasing.”

“The most important thing right now is ensuring that the communities affected by the fires have all the resources they need. Moving forward, the B.C. Green caucus will champion policies that will mitigate the risks of a changing climate to ensure that British Columbians and their homes are protected,” Weaver said.

Poor air quality is persisting across the southern half of British Columbia, causing an increase in the number of people seeking medical help.

Dr. Bonnie Henry, a deputy provincial health officer, told reporters Saturday that there has been a recent rise in emergency calls and hospital visits with people suffering from respiratory and other health conditions related to the smoke and heat, particularly in the Metro Vancouver area.

“Depending on the day and the time of day, the increase can be from 20 percent to 50 percent more than we’ve seen in the past 10 years in the same area,” Henry said.

Although a brutal heat wave across the west coast of B.C. and the western United States ended Saturday, Environment Canada has not lifted an air-quality advisory from eastern Vancouver Island to the Alberta border and as far north as Prince George. Metro Vancouver is also maintaining its air-quality advisory.

“A strong, co-ordinated response to the wildfires is our highest priority,” said Premier Horgan. “To the evacuees, emergency responders, firefighters and volunteers: British Columbians stand with you every step of the way.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

GENEVA, Switzerland, July 26, 2017 (ENS) – Wildfires in southeastern France forced the evacuation of 10,000 people overnight, French officials have confirmed.

Overall, more than 4,000 firefighters and troops supported by water bombers have been trying to extinguish the flames since Monday. Hundreds of firefighters have been deployed to battle the fires near Bormes-les-Mimosas, in the country’s Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.

Roughly 4,000 hectares of land have burned along the Mediterranean coast, in the mountainous interior and on the island of Corsica. One of the worst fires is consuming forests in an area near the popular resort of Saint-Tropez. In Corsica, hundreds of homes have been evacuated.

On Tuesday, before the evacuation, France had asked its EU neighbours for more help to fight the fires, activating the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism.

Christos Stylianides, European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, said, “The EU stands in full solidarity with France. In an immediate response, the European Commission has helped mobilise a Canadair aircraft from Italy through our Civil Protection Mechanism.”

“Earlier this month, France helped Italy fighting forest fires and now Italy is showing its support to France. This is EU solidarity at its best,” said Stylianides. “Our thoughts are with all those affected and the brave first responders working in difficult conditions.”

Twelve firefighters have been injured and 15 police officers have been affected by smoke inhalation, officials say.

During June and July, climatic conditions around the world have been extreme, with fires, floods and drought making life difficult for people and wildlife in many countries.

In the United States, the state of Montana is ablaze. Montana Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order Sunday declaring a fire emergency in the state.

The largest area burning in the state is the Lodgepole Complex – three fires that have burned 226,000 acres (91,460 hectares) and destroyed about a dozen homes in northeastern Montana. The fire has consumed ranch land and hay supplies.

In fact, fires have been devouring forests across the western United States.

The Snowstorm Fire in Nevada began on July 13. It has burned 60,000 acres (24,280 hectares) and is just 13 percent contained. The Detwiler Fire in California began on July 15. It now covers 79,400 acres 32,132 hectares) and is 65 percent contained.

The heat is making travel by air in the United States difficult and, in some cases, impossible. In Arizona, from June 17-27, Phoenix International Airport had 11 straight days with temperatures of at least 110°F (43°C), with one day hitting 48.3°C (119°F). The heat caused multiple canceled flights. The hotter the air, the less dense it is, which means less lift for airplanes as they take off. In order to take off, the planes would have needed a longer runway, which is not available in Phoenix.

In fact, the entire world is heating up. June 2017 extended the spell of “exceptional global warmth” that has lasted since mid-2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which compiles data from its 191 member states and territories.

Average surface air temperatures this June were the second hottest on record, after June 2016, finds the latest analysis from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

In addition to high temperatures, extreme weather affected many parts of the world in June and July.

Rescue services and troops in New Zealand’s South Island worked around the clock over the weekend to help those affected by a severe storm that released floods and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes.

A state of emergency was declared in the South Island cities of Christchurch, Otago, Timaru and Dunedin after some areas were hit with more than 200 millimetres (7.8 inches) of rain in 24 hours.

The New Zealand Meteorological Service says all of July has been marked by severe weather events, caused by low pressure systems from the Tasman Sea.

But in neighboring Australia, it was the second driest June on record, with rainfall 62 percent below average for the continent as a whole, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

In Indonesia, drought is drying the crops as they stand in the fields.

Yet, across southern Asia heavy rains have been making life miserable for residents. This week in Bangladesh, rain has flooded the capital, Dhaka. On July 5, nearly 900,000 Bangladesh residents were affected by floods.

Tuesday, in India’s western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, four people lost their lives and 25,000 have been evacuated due to heavy rains and floods, 33 percent heavier overall than last year, officials said.

Chinese weather authorities report torrential rainfall in the annual monsoon season across China for extended periods in June and early July, causing economic losses and transport disruption. Heavy rains caused cancellation of more than 600 flights at Beijing airport alone on July 6.

The rainfall was one of the contributing factors to a deadly landslide with many casualties on June 24 in Maoxian County, Sichuan.

Since June 22, floodwaters have inundated cities in Hunan Province, forcing more than 311,000 people to evacuate, damaging crops and destroying more than 6,300 houses, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

In southern Japan, tropical storm Nanmadol on July 6 caused local governments to issue evacuation orders to nearly 60,000 residents, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Much of South America and Africa have been warmer than average during this two month period, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The World Meteorological Organization reports the Middle East is broiling. The Iranian city of Ahwaz recorded a temperature of 53.7°Celsius (128.66° Fahrenheit) on June 29 as part of a heatwave with temperatures in excess of 50°C across the region, including Iraq and Kuwait.

An even higher temperature of about 54°C (129.2°F) scorched the city of Turbat, southwestern Pakistan, in late May.

But this week in Turkey, it’s too much water, not too much heat. Istanbul traffic came to a standstill as severe storms inundated the city, flooding the streets.

Temperatures were much above average, and high in absolute terms, over Morocco and northern Algeria in June and July. Forest fires are burning across northern Algeria, consuming an estimated 1,000 hectares.

Southern and central Europe was very much warmer than the 1981-2010 average in June, especially over the Iberian Peninsula, where Portugal experienced devastating wildfires.

The Deutscher Wetterdienst said July 7, “A period with significantly above-normal temperatures and heat waves, at least for the next week, is expected for most parts of the eastern Mediterranean – from Italy, Balkans to Caucasus and Middle East.”

Conversely, says the WMO, temperatures have been well below average over the northeast of Europe. The contrast between southwest and northeast continues a pattern that was present in April and May.

In Russia, June 2017 is called Junabre, meaning June plus November, because of the cold weather in the European parts of the country. June was the coldest month in the past 14 years for Moscow.

The UK should be bracing for record rainfall, says Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The UK’s two wettest winters on record occurred in 2013-14 and 2015-16, flooding many parts of the country. As a result, the National Flood Resilience Review was begun, but it needs expansion to include surface water flooding, says Ward.

Commenting on the publication Monday of the paper, High risk of unprecedented UK rainfall in the current climate, in the journal “Nature Communications,” Ward said, “I hope that the Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, will carefully read this important Met Office analysis because it highlights the risk of extreme rainfall that could cause flooding.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

NEW YORK, New York, July 7, 2017 (ENS) – Despite the absence of all nine nuclear-weapons states, countries meeting at a United Nations conference in New York Friday adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first multilateral legally-binding agreement for nuclear disarmament to have been negotiated in 20 years.

“The treaty represents an important step and contribution towards the common aspirations of a world without nuclear weapons,” the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said following its adoption.

“The Secretary-General hopes that this new treaty will promote inclusive dialogue and renewed international cooperation aimed at achieving the long overdue objective of nuclear disarmament,” said spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

The treaty was adopted by a vote of 122 in favor to one against (Netherlands), with one abstention (Singapore).

It prohibits a full range of nuclear-weapon-related activities, such as undertaking to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, as well as the use or threat of use of these weapons.

“We feel emotional because we are responding to the hopes and dreams of the present and future generations,” said Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gómez of Costa Rica, who serves as the president of the conference that negotiated the treaty in response to a mandate given by the UN General Assembly.

She told a news conference at UN Headquarters that with the treaty the world is “one step closer” to a total elimination of nuclear weapons.

The treaty will be open for signature to all countries at UN Headquarters in New York on September 20, 2017, and enter into force 90 days after it has been ratified by at least 50 countries.

However, a number of countries stayed out of the negotiations, including the United States, Russia and other nuclear-weapon States, as well as many of their allies.

North Korea did not join the talks either.

In a joint press statement issued today, the delegations of the United States, United Kingdom and France said they “have not taken part in the negotiation of the treaty… and do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.”

“This initiative clearly disregards the realities of the international security environment,” they stated. “Accession to the ban treaty is incompatible with the policy of nuclear deterrence, which has been essential to keeping the peace in Europe and North Asia for over 70 years.”

In response to questions on the joint statement, Whyte Gómez said that when the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, was adopted decades ago, it did not enjoy a large number of accessions.

Opened for signature in 1968, the Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970. Then in 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely. A total of 191 States have joined the treaty, including the five nuclear-weapon states that are the permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the beginning, it was unimaginable that those States would be parties to the NPT, she said. “But the world changes and the circumstances change.”

She said that survivors of nuclear bombs, the hibakusha, have been the driving force in the creation of the nuclear weapons prohibition treaty. The experiences they have been sharing “touch the human soul,” she said, adding that the negotiations were a “combination of reason and heart.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, June 10, 2017 (ENS) – The Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea could experience another above-normal hurricane season this year, according to forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center in College Park.

Last year produced five storms that touched land, including Matthew, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record. Matthew caused $10 billion in damage and killed 34 people in the United States and 551 in the Caribbean.

For the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 through November 30, forecasters predict a 45 percent chance of an above-normal season, a 35 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 20 percent chance of a below-normal season.

Forecasters predict a 70 percent likelihood of 11 to 17 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which five to nine could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including two to four major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher).

An average season produces 12 named storms of which six become hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.

These numbers include Tropical Storm Arlene, a rare pre-season storm that formed over the eastern Atlantic in April.

The National Oceanic and Atmosphereic Administration, NOAA, is under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

Secretary Ross said that GOES-16, the most advanced weather satellite NOAA has ever developed, will be moved to the GOES-East position at 75 degrees west longitude, after it is declared operational in November.

Top officials from NOAA announced the long-awaited GOES-16 decision at the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook news conference in College Park late last month.

“As a Florida resident, I am particularly proud of the important work NOAA does in weather forecasting and hurricane prediction,” said Ross. “These forecasts are important for both public safety and business planning, and are a crucial function of the federal government.”

“GOES-16’s unmatched detail in observations and other data will improve forecasts, provide considerable benefits to the economy, and help improve public safety,” Ross said. “It will improve forecasters’ situational awareness and lead to more accurate, timely, and reliable watches and warnings.”

Even before its final positioning, the sophisticated camera on NOAA’s new GOES-16 satellite will give hurricane forecasters a sneak peek at its greater image resolution, sharp detail and rapid-refresh rate.

One of the powerful instruments aboard GOES-16, the lightning mapper, will allow forecasters to see lightning strikes that build within tropical cyclones – a possible signal of strengthening, NOAA says.

The combination of two high-resolution hurricane models will improve forecast guidance for the National Hurricane Center this season. The upgraded Hurricane Weather Research Forecast model adds better representation of storms at higher vertical resolution, and has advanced data assimilation and improved physics.

With these upgrades, the model can improve intensity forecasts by as much as 10 percent and track forecasts by as much as seven percent.

NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center also is replacing the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Hurricane Model with a new hurricane model called HMON, for Hurricanes in a Multi-Scale Ocean-Coupled Non-Hydrostatic, which has superior track and intensity forecast skill.

“The outlook reflects our expectation of a weak or non-existent El Nino, near- or above-average sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, and average or weaker-than-average vertical wind shear in that same region,” said Dr. Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

Strong El Ninos and wind shear typically suppress development of Atlantic hurricanes, so the prediction for weak conditions points to more hurricane activity this year.

Also, warmer sea surface temperatures tend to fuel hurricanes as they move across the ocean. However, the climate models are showing considerable uncertainty, which is reflected in the comparable probabilities for an above-normal and near-normal season.

“NOAA’s broad range of expertise and resources support the nation with strong science and service before, during and after each storm to protect lives and property and enhance the national economy as we continue building a Weather-Ready Nation,” said Ben Friedman, acting NOAA administrator. “From our expert modelers to our dedicated forecasters and brave crews of our hurricane hunters, we’ll be here to warn the nation every step of the way this hurricane season.”

The 2016 season was the most active since 2012, with 15 named storms, including 7 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes.

NOAA will update this outlook in early August, just prior to the peak of the season.

“Regardless of how many storms develop this year, it only takes one to disrupt our lives,” said Acting FEMA Administrator Robert J. Fenton, Jr. “Get ready now with these easy, low-cost steps that will leave you better prepared and will make all the difference.

“Have a family discussion about what you will do, where you will go and how you will communicate with each other when a storm threatens. Know your evacuation route; tune into your local news or download the FEMA app to get alerts, and finally, listen to local authorities as a storm approaches.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

RICHLAND, Washington, May 9, 2017 (ENS) – The U.S. Department of Energy Richland Operations Office declared an emergency at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation at 8:30 this morning after a cave-in of a 20-foot section of a tunnel hundreds of feet long that is used to store contaminated materials.

A former plutonium  and nuclear weapons production site on the Columbia River in central Washington State, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and the target of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup.

During a routine surveillance of the tunnel area this morning, a 20-foot-wide hole in the roof of the tunnel was observed,

The tunnel is located next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, a former chemical processing plant also known as PUREX, located in an industrial area near the center of the Hanford Site, in an area known as the 200 East Area.

No contamination has been detected following the cave-in, and crews continued to survey the area for contamination all day.

All personnel in the vicinity of the PUREX facility are accounted for and there are no reports of injuries.

As a precaution, workers in the vicinity of the PUREX facility as well as the Hanford Site north of the southern entrance to the site were told to shelter in-place for a few hours.

The shelter in place order was lifted in stages from noon to 1:30 pm, and employees were sent home early.

Workers continue to monitor the area for contamination as a crew prepares to fill the hole created by the cave-in to stabilize the tunnel.

At and near the area of subsidence crews have deployed a TALON, a remote operated surveying device capable of radiological and industrial hygiene monitoring as well as capturing video footage. The TALON allows crews to safely survey potential areas of contamination from a distance of up to half a mile.

In the 1950s and 1960s two tunnels were constructed next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant to hold rail cars that were loaded with contaminated equipment and moved into the tunnels during the Cold War. The tunnels were constructed of wood and concrete and covered with eight feet of soil.

The approximately 360-foot-long tunnel where the cave-in occurred contains eight rail cars loaded with contaminated equipment. That tunnel feeds into a longer tunnel that extends hundreds more feet and contains 28 rail cars loaded with contaminated equipment.

The hole opened up in the shorter tunnel near where it joins the longer tunnel. The tunnels were sealed in the mid-1990s and are checked periodically.

Only personnel essential to minimum safe operations are reporting to work, and non-essential personnel for swing and graveyard shifts were told not to report for work Tuesday night.

Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the site housed B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at Hanford was used in the first nuclear bomb and in the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the more than 60,000 weapons built for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The weapons production reactors were decommissioned at the end of the Cold War. Decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste stored within 177 storage tanks, an additional 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m3) of solid radioactive waste, and 200 square miles (520 km2) of contaminated groundwater beneath the site.

Today, Hanford hosts a commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, and various federal government centers for scientific research and development.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

TOKYO, Japan, May 9, 2017 (ENS) – Firefighters have been battling a wildfire in an area contaminated with radiation near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that melted down after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami off the northeast coast of Japan.

The blaze has consumed about 20 hectares (50 acres) of forest on a mountain since it started April 29 in the Tohoku region close to the town of Namie in a no-go zone near the damaged nuclear power plant.

Namie was severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 and the resulting Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The town was evacuated as it is within the 20 kilometer exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant. On April 1, residents were allowed to return.

The area still has high radiation levels as a result of the 2011 nuclear accident. But Fukushima’s prefectural government says that to date monitoring posts near the site have shown “no significant change” in radiation levels due to the fire.

Firefighters and Self-Defense Force members tried to put out the flames using helicopters on Thursday. About 240 personnel in hazmat suits battled the fire on the ground, according to NHK TV.

Local officials and firefighters say the blaze abated on Monday afternoon due to rainfall.

The fire near Fukushima Daiichi is just one of many wildfires that have been raging across the Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima Prefectures in northeastern Japan, driven by strong westerly winds.

A fire that broke out Monday in Kamaishi City has burned 400 hectares of forest and was only 300 meters away from houses at one point, the “Asahi Shimbun” newspaper reports.

City officials issued an evacuation order for nearly 350 residents and set up temporary shelters on Monday. No deaths or injuries have been reported.

Japanese Self-Defense Forces are using helicopters to help fight the forest fires threatening residential areas. Some of the fires have been doused.

A blaze in Kurihara, a city in Miyagi Prefecture, was put out around 8:00 pm on May 8, about eight hours after it broke out. The city issued an evacuation order to nearly 400 people.

Eleven buildings, including homes, were destroyed by the blaze, according to the city’s fire department. Suspecting the Kurihara fire originated from a bonfire, the prefectural police are investigating.

Another forest fire in Fukushima Prefecture broke out in Aizubange, far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It was brought under control this morning after five Self-Defense Force and prefectural helicopters fought the blaze.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said low atmospheric pressure in the Tohoku region caused the strong westerly winds. Dry winds are causing widespread dry conditions in the region with humidity of only 30 percent along the Pacific coast.

The agency has issued a storm warning for the eastern part of Miyagi Prefecture.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 24, 2017 (ENS) – Conservationist and author Kuki Gallmann, 73, was shot and wounded on Sunday morning in Kenya as she was inspecting damage committed by arsonists to her property, an expansive conservation park in Western Laikipia, in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley.

Invaders burned down a retreat on Gallmann’s Laikipia Nature Conservancy Saturday. A luxury safari lodge on the property was burned down in March by suspected cattle herders, who have been in conflict with area landowners.

Gallmann was followed in a separate vehicle by a platoon of Kenya Wildlife Service Rangers who are based at her Laikipia Nature Conservancy to provide wildlife surveillance and security.

After inspecting the damaged property, Gallmann was returning to her home when she was ambushed at a tree laid across the road. She was fired upon by the suspected Pokot herdsmen and sustained bullet wounds to the abdomen.

The Kenya Wildlife Service Rangers returned fire and were able to rescue her. They brought her home, where first aid was administered. She was airlifted to Nanyuki for additional treatment and then to the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi for surgery, according to a statement by Kitili Mbathi, director general of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

“Gallman is an Honorary Kenya Wildlife Service Warden of long standing and her Conservancy hosts significant wildlife, making it an important wildlife conservation area,” Mbathi said.

“We would like to commend the courageous and swift action by the KWS Rangers, which was able to save an ardent conservationist,” he said.

Mbathi condemned “the unprovoked attack by the suspected herders” which he said poses a security threat to residents and wildlife in Laikipia.

A surge of violence has disrupted Kenya’s drought-ridden Laikipia region as armed herders searching for grazing land have driven tens of thousands of head of cattle onto private properties from dry communal land.

The Gallmann family owns the 400 square km Laikipia Nature Conservancy and employs 250 Kenyans at lodges and other businesses on the land.

Decades of protection has turned theproperty into a biodiversity oasis that supports and protects the only pristine forest in the area. The conservation park shelters endangered species such as elephants and cheetah, over 470 species of birds, and rare and endemic plants and insects, in addition to archaeological sites.

But the property is often attacked. In January 2016, authorities netted about 14 tonnes of rare and imperiled sandalwood with an estimated street value of Sh 30 million cut secretly at night from the Laikipia Nature Conservancy.

At the time Gallmann said when she was tipped off by members of the public, she informed police. “This is a major breakthrough into the illegal business that has been going on inside my private ranch,” she said. “We are happy to have finally made a breakthrough.”

Born in Treviso, Italy, the daughter of Italian climber and writer Cino Boccazzi, in 1972 Gallmann moved to Kenya with her husband Paolo and son Emanuele.

They acquired Ol ari Nyiro, the 98,000 acre cattle ranch in Western Laikipia, which she would transform into a conservation park. Both her husband and son died in accidents within a few years of moving to Kenya.

Gallmann decided to stay in Kenya and to work toward ecological conservation, becoming a Kenyan citizen. As a living memorial to Paolo and Emanuele, she established the Gallmann Memorial Foundation, which promotes the coexistence of people and nature in Africa and is active in education, biodiversity research, habitat protection, reforestation, community service, peace and reconciliation, poverty alleviation and public health.

Gallmann has published five books, all global best-sellers. The first, her autobiography “I Dreamed Of Africa,” became a feature film starring Kim Basinger.

In 2008, after Kenya’s post-election violence, she founded the Laikipia Highlands Games (Sport for Peace) to bring together youth of previously warring tribes across ethnic, tribal and political divides through peaceful but challenging sports competition.

The Laikipia Highlands Games won for Kenya the 2009 Event of Year World Award by the Peace and Sport Foundation in Monaco.

In 2010 Gallmann founded Prayers for the Earth, to involve local tribal elders and youth to recapture the traditional respect for the environment on which their livelihood depends, and reconnect to the Earth through traditional worship.

In 2011, with her daughter Sveva, Gallmann acquired and donated 300 acres for a model community project called “Land of Hope” in Laikipia West, which aims to benefit impoverished communities of the area. It now hosts a vocational centre for women and youth, a nursery school and feeding program, a dispensary, and a high altitude athletics training center.

Among her honors, Gallmann was named World Ambassador for the Migratory Species by the United Nation Convention for Migratory Species in 2006.

In 2012, Italy bestowed upon Gallmann the Grosso d’Oro Veneziano International Award for Lifetime Conservation Achievement.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

MOCOA, Colombia, April 4, 2017 (ENS) – Torrential rains caused three rivers to burst their banks in the Colombian city of Mocoa early Saturday morning sending water and debris crashing into homes. The flooding and mudslides have claimed 254 lives and left hundreds of people missing. Thousands scrambled to evacuate, and hundreds of people have been injured.

Environmental authorities calculate that the rain that fell in a few hours equaled the amount of rainfall during 10 days in this area of ​​the country under normal conditions.

The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Luis Gilberto Murillo, expressed his solidarity with survivors and families of those killed by the avalanche of water and mud. He pledged support for those affected by the overflow of the Mocoa, Mulato and Sancoyaco rivers in Mocoa, the capital of Colombia’s southwestern Putumayo province.

“We are sorry and we are very sorry for what happened in Mocoa,” said Murillo. “This tragedy has directly affected the National Environmental System.”

Murillo said the emergency in Mocoa is a new “signal for all Colombians and the world about the need to be aware of the phenomena of climate variability, a call to update plans for adaptation to climate change and implement measures of mitigation, as well as to realize the proper occupation of the territories and the conservation of ecosystems.”

The minister emphasized that one of the priorities of his portfolio has been prevention and early warning of extreme weather and climate incidents.

“We have been very active in warning, since August of last year, as we also did last March 6, about the probability of emergencies. Because of increased rainfall, however, we must understand that the magnitude of this natural catastrophe outweighs the odds of any environmental prediction,” he said.

“Beyond warning, we have given guidance and have been helping local authorities in the country in the formulation of mitigation plans,” said the minister.

During a flyover of the emergency area in Putumayo on Tuesday, Murillo announced an initiative that will recover environmentally the upper part of the Putumayo River basin.

He said that thanks to the conservation of a forest, one of Mocoa’s neighborhoods was saved from the deadly avalanche of mud and water.

“In today’s flyby we detected that the neighborhood of El Carmen has a reserve of trees, and that really prevented the avalanche from ravaging it. This confirms that we must have the ecosystems in good condition in order to recover them,” said Murillo.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, he said, pipelines and hydraulic works will be carried out at critical points in order to be able to reuse rainwater.

The environment minister also announced an initiative to work on the recovery, restoration and reforestation of the entire upper and middle river basin.

“We will have a project of environmental axis – Forests of Peace and Life of the Sancoyaco River and Mulato River,” said the minister. “This will be an important urban project, as well as the protection of 4,000 hectares in the rural area.”

Today officials reconfirmed the critical areas for action and identified a new risk zone. The environmental authorities recommend continued monitoring for possible landslides and potential blockage of the rivers with debris.

The Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies, or IDEAM, has issued a red alert for sudden surges in the upper Putumayo and Caquetá river basin.

IDEAM is also warning of more landslides in Mocoa and Villagarzón and has issued an orange alert for San Francisco and Santiago in the upper Putumayo.

According to Luis Alexander Mejía Bustos, director of the Corporation for the Sustainable Development of the South of the Amazon, or Corpoamazonia, the confluence of environmental and geological aspects associated with the Amazonian piedmont landscape complicates the situation.

“We have that sum of coverage, rocks and bodies of water that cross the city until it ends at the Mocoa River. Now it is necessary to try to locate a new canal that allows to efficiently evacuate the amount of mud, stone and vegetal material that was deposited,” he said.

Minister Murillo said he will lead a project to generate Colombia’s first technical guidelines for future housing reconstruction projects that must take risk scenarios into account.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

AMMAN, Jordan, February 20, 2017 (ENS) – The illegal trade and the manufacture and use of toxic pesticides in Israeli illegal settlements, result in human rights violations and contribute to the food insecurity in the Occupied West Bank, an international fact-finding mission concludes.

Pesticide run-off from agricultural operations and hazardous wastes from the manufacture of agrochemicals inside the illegal settlements poison Palestinian farms, livestock, and water sources, the investigators learned.

Dumping hazardous wastes in Palestinian territory has been documented, including in areas with a high concentration of schools.

The joint mission, conducted in May 2016, was led by the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, APN, based in Amman, and the PAN Asia Pacific, PANAP, based in Malaysia, one of five regional centers of the Pesticide Action Network.

The investigation reveals the presence of highly hazardous pesticides banned by the Palestinian Authority, but illegally traded into the Occupied Palestinian Territories – pesticides such as endosulfan and Dukatalon, a mix of paraquat and diquat.

The two reports that came out of the investigation found that 50 percent of pesticides in Palestine are illegal, and that five metric tonnes of banned pesticides have been confiscated since 1995.

The Palestinian Authority is in no position to dispose of these chemicals safely, and Israel refuses to take them back, investigators found.

International pesticide specialist Dr. Meriel Watts of PANAP in New Zealand participated in the mission and co-authored the reports with Tanya Lee and Heather Aidy.

“It is unacceptable that the Palestinian Authority, with one of the tightest pesticide registration and compliance systems, including not allowing pesticides that are banned in their country of origin, is thwarted at every turn by the Israeli authorities who knowingly facilitate the entry of banned highly hazardous pesticides into the Occupied West Bank,” declared Watts.

Communities near Israel’s industrial settlements in the West Bank have reported contamination of their soil and drinking water, proliferation of disease-carrying mosquitoes, and increased incidence of respiratory and eye diseases, including among children.

Razan Zuayter, founder and Board Member of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, said, “Some of these agrochemical companies have been shut down inside the Green Line for violations of environmental and health regulations, but operate with impunity inside illegal settlements at the expense of the health, livelihood and environment of Palestinians.”

“Moreover,” said Zuayter, “the Palestinian Authority does not have access to information on the chemicals manufactured and used inside the illegal settlements.”

These activities have been found to violate Palestinians’ rights to information, self-determination, water, the highest attainable standard of health and a healthy environment and livelihood.

“Palestinian officials endeavour to run a process of strict control over pesticide importation and use, with tight control on registration and approved dealers, including frequent audits of shops. However, their efforts are severely undermined by the existing political situation – in particular, the refusal of Israel to allow the Palestinians to enforce Palestinian law, the failure of the Israeli military to allow Palestinians to police their border, and the failure of the Israelis themselves to stop the illegal trade. As a result, there is a very sizeable trade in illegal pesticides into the Occupied West Bank,” states the report entitled, “Pesticides and Agroecology in the Occupied West Bank.”

The Israeli State and agrochemical corporations have been identified as accountable for their failure to prevent the illegal trade, and for not providing access to just and fair redress and effective remedy, the reports conclude.

Zuayter objects to the chemical contamination and lack of information as violations of the human rights of Palestinians. “These human rights violations are perpetrated in the context of the Israeli occupation and expansion of the illegal settlements,” she says.

Zuayter cites Israeli control that prevents the Palestinian Authority from fully enforcing policies to restrict the trade, manufacture and use of around 200 registered active ingredients in the Occupied West Bank, and prevents the Palestinian Authority from responding to the chemical crisis.

The two reports were launched along with an international online petition outlining recommendations for the international community on February 20, World Social Justice Day 2017.

PANAP Executive Director Sarojeni Rengam said, “What more perfect timing to launch the reports but on World Social Justice Day, with the urgent need to bridge the accountability gap and hold the Israeli State and agrochemical companies legally liable for their injustice to the Palestinian people.”

Click on the links below to access the pair of reports:

Human Rights and Toxic Chemicals in the Occupied West Bank (Palestine)
Pesticides and Agroecology in the Occupied West Bank

More information at: #StopPoisoningPalestine, #WorldSocialJusticeDay, and #PesticidesFreeWorld

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

SACRAMENTO, California, February 13, 2017 (ENS) – More than 180,000 people near Lake Oroville in Butte County, California were evacuated from their homes Sunday as officials warned the auxiliary emergency spillway at Lake Oroville Dam could fail. Failure of the emergency spillway at America’s tallest dam could cause widespread and severe flooding along the Feather River Basin.

California Governor Jerry Brown issued an emergency order Sunday night mobilizing the California National Guard to bolster the state’s response to the situation at the Oroville Dam’s auxiliary spillway and support local evacuations.

“I’ve been in close contact with emergency personnel managing the situation in Oroville throughout the weekend and it’s clear the circumstances are complex and rapidly changing,” said Governor Brown.

In his emergency order, the governor explained that during January and February, three atmospheric river storm systems struck California, bringing massive amounts of rainfall.

This rainfall inundated lakes, rivers, and streams throughout the state, causing them to reach capacity, resulting in widespread flooding.

Lake Oroville in Butte County, in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, reached capacity February 7, causing officials to utilize the main spillway at Lake Oroville Dam to reduce the lake’s water levels. But the main spillway began to erode, causing officials to begin utilizing the auxiliary emergency spillway on February 11.

It is this auxiliary emergency spillway that is in danger of failing.  Officials worry that failure could send a 30-foot wall of water into downtown Oroville and other communities along the Feather River.

“…the circumstances of this potential flooding by reason of its magnitude, are or are likely to be beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of any single local government and require the combined forces of a mutual aid region or regions to combat,” Governor Brown said in his order.

“I find that conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist in Butte, Sutter, and Yuba Counties due to this potential flooding…” wrote Brown.

“I want to thank local and state law enforcement for leading evacuation efforts and doing their part to keep residents safe. The state is directing all necessary personnel and resources to deal with this very serious situation,” the governor said Sunday night.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office offered some relief in a tweet late last night, saying, “Flows over the auxiliary spillway have ceased. 100,000 cfs continue down the main spillway.”

Still, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has activated the State Operations Center in Mather, California to its highest level and is coordinating with personnel at the Incident Command Post in Oroville and with other local, state and federal emergency response officials to address all emergency management, evacuation and mutual aid needs.

The California Department of Water Resources, DWR, and the incident command team managing Lake Oroville are concerned that erosion at the head of the auxiliary spillway threatens to undermine the concrete weir and allow large, uncontrolled releases of water from Lake Oroville that could exceed the capacity of downstream channels.

To avert more erosion at the top of the auxiliary spillway, DWR doubled the flow down its main spillway from 55,000 cubic feet per second to 100,000 cfs.

“The next several hours will be crucial in determining whether the concrete structure at the head of the auxiliary spillway remains intact and prevents larger, uncontrolled flows,” said DWR in a statement Sunday night.

Current flows are contained with downstream channels. Flow over the auxiliary spillway weir began Saturday morning and has slowed considerably. DWR officials expect that flow to stop entirely soon, which will reduce the erosion on the downstream side of the structure.

DWR focused Saturday on ways to get the Hyatt Power Plant at Oroville Dam back in operation, because 14,000 cubic feet per second, cfs, can be discharged from the plant when it is operating, which would help with reservoir management.

Power generation was halted when the water levels in the channel that leads
from the power plant became high enough to compromise operation. Water levels rose when debris from the eroded concrete spillway piled up in the channel below.

“The same erosion also threatens the towers that hold the power lines that take electricity from the power plant to the electrical grid; such a connection is needed for the power plant to operate,” DWR said.

DWR, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, and other partners are working to safeguard the hydroelectric facility and power lines.

Oroville Dam itself is sound and is a separate structure from the auxiliary spillway.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

SANTIAGO, Chile, February 6, 2017 (ENS) – In Chile’s worst fire disaster in 50 years, the South American country has lost over half a million hectares to more than 100 wildfires that first flared up in mid-January. The blazes have frustrated firefighters’ efforts to control them, with new hot spots emerging daily across the central and southern regions.

Eleven fatalities have been reported, many of them firefighters.

Meteorologists say the entire Southern Hemisphere is experiencing an unusually dry, windy summer, ideal conditions for wildfires to burn out of control.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has declared a national state of emergency. As of today, 26 fires are more or less under control, but at least six wildfires are still raging, according to the Forestry Operations Center, CONAF.

Cristian Orellana, who manages CONAF in the central Chilean region of Maule has been supervising the response to the largest fire in the country. “In a single night, the fire spread over 10,000 hectares, covering 26 kilometers,” he said.

“The heat was such that even planes couldn’t fly over to drop water,” said Orellana. The fire wiped out the entire town of Santa Olga, former home to 4,500 inhabitants.

The fires can reach extreme temperatures, sparking devastating fire-storms spread by strong winds. blazes. Trees are blown off their roots and the fires carbonize everything in their path, leaving only white ash scattered across the hills.

Entire vineyards in Chile’s famous wine region have been destroyed.

Thousands of people have had to flee their homes, and over 1,500 houses have been completely destroyed. Families are gathered in makeshift camps, where the Chilean Army has set up tents to shelter those who have lost everything.

Today at a news conference, President Bachelet said, “Chile does not have significant new outbreaks and the others are mostly controlled. That is good news, but it does not mean that we are lowering our guard. On the contrary … we cannot stop fighting or trying to prevent new fires, because we know we are still In the fire season until April, usually.”

Sergio Galilea, Undersecretary of Public Works, will manage reconstruction in the regions of O’Higgins, Maule and Biobío, the president said.

“He must be on the ground, together with the people, listening to their needs, supporting their efforts, mobilizing and streamlining public services within agreed and limited deadlines, because our compatriots can not wait,” said Bachelet.

“This is not just about replacing what was there,” she said. “We have to act thinking about reducing risk situations in the future and giving people and localities more security.”

The European Union is offering assistance through its Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations.

Established in 2001, the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, EUCPM, coordinates national civil protection authorities across Europe to deliver immediate assistance in the aftermath of a disaster.

“I have never seen such widespread damage and such a level of destruction,” says José Almovodovar, an EUCPM expert in forest fires, after viewing the region from a helicopter.

In the last few days, 52 firefighters from Portugal deployed under the EUCPM, have brought some of worst fires under control.

“We have rarely witnessed such extreme behaviors in wildfires,” says Miguel Cruz, the deputy head of Portugal’s Protecçao Civil and a veteran of EU Civil Protection deployments in Latin America.

Wild animals are fleeing the forests towards inhabited areas in search of food and shelter, says CODEFF, the BirdLife International affiliate in Chile, which has mobilized volunteers to help them.

Some of the areas affected by the wildfires have been assessed as being Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas by BirdLife International.

Wildlife rehabilitation centers across the country are treating birds, snakes and mammals such as foxes, leopards and cougars.

CODEFF is running a campaign to collect medicines and medical supplies for the treatment of burned animals. Safety equipment is also welcome, as it is used for volunteers, helmets, filter masks, leather gloves and safety shoes are needed.

CODEFF is coordinating with various government agencies and other NGOs to go to the most remote areas in search of injured animals.

The fires can be seen from space, and their pattern includes a massive burn scar near Empedrado. Scientists with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA say this year’s Chilean fires are 10 times more numerous that those recorded during the dry seasons from 2003 to 2016.

“This is unprecedented from my perspective. The smoke plumes are huge in abundance and altitude,” said Michael Fromm, a meteorologist with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory who has been studying satellite fire data for 15 years. “Fires have gotten much larger and much more energetic than typical for that area.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

PASADENA, California, January 30, 2017 (ENS) – “Dramatic, widespread shoreline loss” is what government scientists call the pattern revealed in new NASA/U.S. Geological Survey annual maps of the Louisiana marshlands where the coast was most heavily coated with oil during the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil is known to weaken or kill vegetation, leading to loss of the roots that help hold soil together.

Following the spill, which lasted five months from April 20 to September 19, 2010, the length of shoreline that receded more than 13 feet (four meters) a year quadrupled compared to the year before the spill.

The land losses occurred mainly in areas where oil had washed ashore during the spill. Reports in early 2012 indicated the well site was still leaking.

A research team led by Amina Rangoonwala of USGS used airborne remote sensing imagery to analyze shoreline loss across nearly the entire upper Barataria Bay, located on the western side of the Mississippi River Delta, beginning a year before the spill and extending for 2.5 years after it.

To determine whether the erosion was likely to be caused by the oil, they also compared shoreline loss linked to the deposited oil with shoreline erosion caused by high waves from Hurricane Isaac in 2012.

The team found that although erosion occurred at isolated sections of the shoreline before the spill, the pre-spill shoreline, as analyzed from 2009 to 2010, was largely stable.

In the first year after the spill, 2010 to 2011, “the erosion pattern changed dramatically from isolated to widespread,” the scientists said. Erosion occurred mainly along shorelines with documented heavy to moderate oil coating.

In the second year after the spill, 2011 to 2012, the higher loss rates extended to areas that had less oil coating.

In August 2012, two months after the two-year post-spill period, Hurricane Isaac made a direct hit on Barataria Bay. Erosion rates measured in the four months after the hurricane were higher than those measured after the spill.

But this erosion occurred primarily on just a few shorelines that before the spill showed evidence of heightened susceptibility to wave-generated erosion.

“Our study uniquely shows that the patterns of shoreline recession seen in this region can be directly related to distinctly different causes: broadly dispersed erosion due to oiling from the Deepwater Horizon spill, and enhanced, but spatially limited, erosion due to intense storm impacts,” said Rangoonwala.

Wetland impacts of the spill documented by the team included both the loss of wetlands due to shoreline erosion, and island fragmentation, where small islands are broken into even smaller islands, creating more shoreline.

Land lost from fragmentation is unlikely to be reestablished, particularly in this part of the Mississippi River delta where levees prevent an influx of new sediments from the river. The scientists say this will alter natural coastal defenses against flooding.

The images collected in the annual surveys and following Hurricane Isaac were obtained from NASA’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, UAVSAR, developed and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

UAVSAR flies on a C-20A research aircraft based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, California.

UAVSAR’s polarized radar produced detailed representations of the marsh, which USGS scientists then used to develop a process to analyze the shoreline recession by mapping the change in shore location.

“Through this process, USGS and NASA scientists developed a repeatable, quantitative mapping method that will allow us to monitor shoreline erosion after oil spills in the future,” said study co-author Cathleen Jones of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Being able to compare shoreline losses in a year without any major storm to losses both after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and after the hurricane was essential to correlating the erosion of the marsh to its underlying causes,” said Jones.

The study, “Wetland shoreline recession in the Mississippi River Delta from petroleum oiling and cyclonic storms,” is published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters.”

Developed to test new technologies and study Earth surface dynamics, UAVSAR is informing the design and planning for a future spaceborne radar mission, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), which is planned to image almost the entire Earth’s surface at least once every 12 days.

NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how the planet is changing.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2017. All rights reserved.

LYON, France, December 30, 2016 (ENS) – Environmental crime is a national priority for at least 80 percent of countries, with the majority reporting new and more sophisticated criminal activities that increasingly threaten peace and security, finds a new survey by INTERPOL and UN Environment (UNEP).

Some 70 countries were surveyed for their new joint report, “Environment, Peace and Security – A Convergence of Threats,” released earlier this month at the Law, Justice and Development Week 2016 hosted by the World Bank in Washington, DC.

The report focuses on the links between global environmental crime, valued at US$91 to 258 billion annually, and other criminal activities, including organized crime and terrorism.

More than 60 percent of countries surveyed report that they are witnessing new environmental crimes or methods of operation, indicating growing sophistication by transnational organized crime groups.

In addition, 84 percent reported a convergence with other serious crimes, such as corruption (42 percent), counterfeiting (39 per cent), drug trafficking (36 percent), cybercrime (23 percent) and financial crime (17 percent).

INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said, “Environmental crime is transnational in scope and insidious in nature. It robs governments of much-needed revenues, people of their livelihoods, and communities of peace and security.”

“The international community needs to support a comprehensive approach by following rhetoric with action, policy with implementation and law with enforcement,” said Stock.

The report found that some non-state armed groups, terrorist groups and criminal networks fund their activities by exploiting natural resources in conflict areas, posing a serious threat to peace and security. It is estimated that at least 40 percent of internal conflicts have a link to natural resources.

“The time has come to meet the threat of environmental crime with a coordinated response from member states, international organizations and the United Nations. Such a response must address the need for improved information sharing, enhanced protection of civilians, better law enforcement and a deeper understanding of the drivers of conflicts,” said Erik Solheim, who heads the UN Environment agency, formerly the UN Environment Programme, UNEP.

With environmental crime sometimes viewed as an alternative to poverty for low-income populations, their financial needs are exploited by criminal groups who rely on them for poaching and illegal logging, fishing or mining.

The report recommends a multidisciplinary approach to tackling environmental crime; greater information exchange across sectors; increased focus on the implementation of environmental policy; and stronger financial support, including through Official Development Assistance.

The report’s publication follows the resolution adopted at the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in November 2016 which calls for enhanced cooperation between the UN and INTERPOL against transnational crime and terrorism.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2016. All rights reserved.