deforestation
Land Use/Forests

World’s Forests at the Mercy of Commodity Supply Chains

OXFORD, UK, February 11, 2015 (ENS) – Only a small minority of the power brokers controlling the global commodity supply chains that drive the world’s tropical deforestation are able to meet demand without destroying forests, finds the first ranking of these powerful players. […]

Naidu
Land Use/Forests

India Plans Smart Cities for ‘Harmonious Living With Nature’

NEW DELHI, India, February 5, 2015 (ENS) – Smart cities are meant to promote “harmonious living with nature,” India’s Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu told delegates to the Convocation of The Energy Research Institute on Wednesday. The minister called for reorientation of urban design and planning approaches to promote such a harmony. […]

ANWR
Land Use/Forests

Obama Would Widen Wilderness in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

WASHINGTON, DC, January 26, 2015 (ENS) – “Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge is an incredible place – pristine, undisturbed,” said President Obama in a YouTube video announcing his administration’s plan to protect core areas of the refuge, including its Coastal Plain, as Wilderness, the highest level of protection available to public lands. […]

forest
Land Use/Forests

CO2 Speeds Tropical Forest Growth, Slowing Climate Change

BOULDER, Colorado, January 18, 2015 (ENS) – Tropical forests have a bigger appetite for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than many scientists have believed – even greater than that of temperate forests, finds a new study led by NASA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR. […]

Adenan
Land Use/Forests

Sarawak’s New Chief Minister Takes on ‘Corrupt’ Timber Tycoons

KUCHING, Sarawak, Malaysia, November 17, 2014 (ENS) – For the first time in the 50-year history of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, a chief minister has taken the timber industry to task. Chief Minister Adenan Satem Monday gathered the tycoons of the state’s big six logging firms for a meeting, during which he publicly accused them of “corrupt” practices. […]

Blankenship
Business

Massey Coal Executive Indicted for Fatal Mine Explosion

CHARLESTON, West Virginia, November 15, 2014 (ENS) – Don Blankenship, former CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, was indicted Thursday on charges of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards and impeding federal mine safety officials prior to an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine at Montcoal, West Virginia that killed 29 miners on April 5, 2010. […]

World Parks Congress
Land Use/Forests

IUCN Debuts Green List of Protected Areas at World Parks Congress

SYDNEY, Australia, November 14, 2014 (ENS) – The IUCN’s Green List of Protected Areas was introduced to the world today at the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 in Sydney. Held once every 10 years by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the World Parks Congress gathers thousands of delegates from around the world to strategize on protection of the planet’s vanishing pristine areas. […]

Tapajós River
Land Use/Forests

Brazilian Judge Sides With Tribe Over Land Threatened by Dams

BRASILIA, Brazil, November 6, 2014 (ENS) – In a struggle between a Brazilian indigenous tribe and the federal government over two dams that would flood lands claimed by the tribe, a federal judge has ruled that the government must immediately publish its report delineating the tribe’s territory that has been withheld for more than a year. […]

Straumann
Land Use/Forests

Swiss Publisher Defies Malaysian Threats Against ‘Money Logging’

BASEL, Switzerland, November 3, 2014 (ENS) – Swiss publisher Bergli Books announced today that, as planned, it will publish Lukas Straumann’s book, “Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia,” despite demands to withhold publication by a law firm representing the billionaire governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, Abdul Taib, whose activities are detailed in the book. […]

mountains
Land Use/Forests

President Obama Designates San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

WASHINGTON, DC, October 21, 2014 (ENS) – President Barack Obama has used his authority under the Antiquities Act to establish 540 square miles of national forest land in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California as a national monument, permanently protecting the popular outdoor recreation destination. […]

river
Land Use/Forests

New Dam Causing Ripples in Northern Kenya

By Robert Wanjala – NAIROBI, Kenya, October 6, 2014 (ENS) – Wario Galelo, 64, raises livestock downstream from the site of a hydroelectric dam which the Kenyan government plans to construct on the Ewaso Ngiro river in the north of the country. […]

mine
Land Use/Forests

Court Blocks West Virginia Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine

WASHINGTON, DC, October 2, 2014 (ENS) – A long court battle came to an end Tuesday when a federal judge upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of a permit for a large, contentious mountaintop removal coal mine in Appalachia, the Spruce No. 1 Mine. […]

wildfire
Land Use/Forests

Rocky Mountain Forests Vanishing as Planet Heats Up

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, September 10, 2014 (ENS) – Climate change could kill up to 90 percent of the forests covering the Rocky Mountains, warned the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists today in a new study based in part on projections made by the U.S. Forest Service. […]

wood Kabul
Land Use/Forests

Snow Sales Replace Illegal Logging in Afghan Province

KHOST, Afghanistan, September 8, 2014 (ENS) – For hundreds of years, people in Afghanistan have stockpiled winter snows in specially-dug pits so they can use it during the scorching summer months. Now, residents and officials in Khost say storing and selling snow could provide a viable alternative to illegal logging. […]

planting rice
Land Use/Forests

Global Action Plan to Protect Soil Resources Approved

ROME, Italy, July 25, 2014 (ENS) – A third of the world’s soils are degraded by erosion, nutrient depletion, acidification, urbanization, and chemical pollution, soil experts at a global conference warned today. There, governments approved a global plan of action to safeguard soil resources through strong regulation and investment. […]

mine site
Land Use/Forests

EPA Blocks Giant Alaska Mine to Protect Bristol Bay Salmon

SEATTLE, Washington, July 18, 2014 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed regulations to protect one of the world’s most valuable salmon fisheries, in Bristol Bay, Alaska, from the risks posed by a proposed open pit mine nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon and larger than Manhattan. […]