fish
At Risk

Fish-Killing Parasite Forces Yellowstone River Closure

BOZEMAN, Montana, August 29, 2016 (ENS) – A fish kill caused by a microscopic parasite prompted Montana wildlife officials to shut down 175 miles of the Yellowstone River and its tributaries to recreation last week. The unprecedented move was taken to prevent a parasite that causes kidney disease in fish from spreading. […]

dam
At Risk

Fracking Near Peace River Dams Scares BC Hydro

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, August 21, 2016 (ENS) – Senior BC Hydro executives have worried for years that earthquakes triggered by fracking operations in search of natural gas could damage its two big dams on the Peace River, putting thousands of people at risk if the dams fail. […]

Florida
At Risk

NASA: July 2016 Warmest Month on Record

NEW YORK, New York, August 17, 2016 (ENS) – The month of July 2016 was the warmest July in 136 years of modern record keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. […]

frie
At Risk

Brazil’s Amazon Hot, Dry and Ablaze

BRASILIA, Brazil, August 10, 2016 (ENS) – Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, registered over 53,000 forest fires in the country up to Friday, and warns that the hot, dry weather may make things worse, if law enforcement efforts are not increased. […]

clearcuts
At Risk

Humans Overshoot Earth’s Annual Budget in Eight Months

OAKLAND, California, August 8, 2016 (ENS) – At the Oakland office of the international sustainability think tank Global Footprint Network, August 8 is a special day. It’s Earth Overshoot Day, the date when humanity has used up all the natural resources the planet can renew in the entire year. […]

desert
At Risk

UNESCO Protects Natural Areas of World Heritage Value

ISTANBUL, Turkey, July 18, 2016 (ENS) – The World Heritage Committee has inscribed nine new natural, or mixed natural and cultural, sites on the List of World Heritage: one transnational site – in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan – and others in Canada, Chad, China, India, Iraq, Iran, Mexico and Sudan. […]

bison
At Risk

Dams, Logging, Poaching Threaten World Heritage

ISTANBUL, Turkey, July 12, 2016 (ENS) – Of all the world’s unique natural areas threatened by logging, poaching, dam development and gillnet fishing, the International Union for Conservation of Nature is advising the United Nations to place five of them on the List of Heritage in Danger. […]

gorilla
At Risk

World Heritage Sites at Risk from Climate Change

PARIS, France, May 26, 2016 (ENS) – Climate change is quickly becoming one of the most challenging risks for World Heritage sites and the tourists who want to visit them, finds the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate,” released today by UNESCO, UNEP, and the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. […]

fire
At Risk

Raging Alberta Wildfires Block Oil Sands Production

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada, May 17, 2016 (ENS) – Five new wildfires started in northern Alberta over the past 24 hours, and now a total of 17 wildfires are burning, with four blazing out of control. Fire conditions remain extreme in Alberta, where the Fort McMurray wildfire remains out of control. […]

quake damage
At Risk

Earthquake Hits Ecuador, Kills More Than 272

QUITO, Ecuador, April 17, 2016 (ENS) – The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Saturday night off the west coast of northern Ecuador has killed at least 272 people, a death toll that will “certainly rise,” according to President Rafael Correa. […]

Fukushima
At Risk

Fukushima Ecosystem Still Poisoned Five Years Later

TOKYO, Japan, March 11, 2016 (ENS) – “The environmental impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster will last decades to centuries, due to man-made, long-lived radioactive elements are absorbed into the living tissues of plants and animals and being recycled through food webs, and carried downstream to the Pacific Ocean…” writes Greenpeace Japan. […]

Berta Cáceres
At Risk

Goldman Prize Winner Murdered in Honduras

SAN FRANCISCO, California, March 3, 2016 (ENS) – A indigenous Lenca woman who was honored with a 2015 Goldman Prize last year for her fight against a destructive dam, was killed by gunmen last night in her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. […]

survivors
At Risk

Hottest Year Linked to ‘Devastating’ Human Disaster Toll

NEW YORK, New York, February 11, 2016 (ENS) – At least 98.6 million people were harmed by natural disasters in 2015, the hottest year on record. Climate, intensified by a strong El Niño pattern, was the driver in 92 percent of those events, finds a new analysis by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction […]

rescue
At Risk

Taiwan Quake Leaves 67 Dead, 57 Still Missing

TAIPEI, Taiwan, February 11, 2016 (ENS) – The death toll from Saturday’s earthquake in Taiwan stands at 67 people, with 57 others still missing and presumed trapped under the rubble of a collapsed residential building, Taiwan’s Ministry of Interior said today. […]