"LONDON -- The world is depleting underground water reserves faster than they can be replenished due to over-exploitation, according to scientists in Canada and the Netherlands."

"Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota is often called the Walden Pond of the West. But Roosevelt's ranch is now feeling the pressure of an oil boom that is industrializing the local landscape. Critics say a proposed gravel pit and a bridge could destroy the very thing that made such a lasting impression on Roosevelt: the restorative power of wilderness."

As ethnobotanists meet in New York City, they offer reminders that obscure and endangered species should be preserved because they sometimes form the basis of miracle drugs.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Dealing another blow to the Obama administration's crackdown on mountaintop removal, a federal judge on Tuesday threw out new federal guidance that aimed to reduce water pollution from Appalachian coal mining operations."

"ST. LOUIS -- Illinois rejected an application for a permit for a strip coal mine that opponents claimed would have threatened a tiny village's water supply and various animals in a nearby wildlife area."

"A dramatic gash in the surface of the Earth that could rival the majesty of the Grand Canyon has been discovered secreted beneath Antarctica's vast, featureless ice sheet."

"Perhaps the most unsung patch of heaven in New York City is a tiny sliver of riverfront parkland tucked between a metal-recycling yard and a giant wholesale produce market, on the far side of a six-lane highway and a pair of active freight train tracks. Hunts Point Riverside Park, a 1.4-acre speck in the South Bronx, opened a few years ago on what had been a filthy, weedy street end."

"WASHINGTON — Climate change is sweeping indigenous villages into the sea in Alaska, flooding the taro fields of native Hawaiians and devastating the salmon population from which Washington state Indian tribes draw their livelihood, tribal leaders testified Thursday at a Senate hearing."

After decades of conflict over the Klamath River, stakeholders including farmers, tribes, environmentalists, fishermen, governors, and federal officials, struck an agreement they thought served everybody. Then the Tea Party scotched it.

"More than two years after the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental groups say billions of dollars the British oil giant is expected to spend on restoration should go toward buying tens of thousands of acres of coastal land for conservation, rebuilding Louisiana's eroding wetlands and creating nearly 200 miles of oyster reefs."

"It took less than an hour last month for a Montana wildfire to reduce Scott McRae's ranch to thousands of blackened acres devoid of the grasses that were to sustain hundreds of cattle."

"It's high season in the nation's national parks as millions of visitors come to see nature. If last year's visitor figures hold up -- and early indications suggest they will -- nine million visitors will see the Great Smoky Mountains, the most visited national park. Three other parks -- Grand Canyon (more than four million visitors in 2011) Yellowstone (about three million) and Acadia (more than two million) -- combined will attract roughly the same number."

"Three recent coal train derailments are bolstering opposition to the planned expansion of coal exports from Pacific Northwest shipping terminals."

"Tom Dettweiler makes his living miles down. He helped find the Titanic. After that, his teams located a lost submarine heavy with gold. In all, he has cast light on dozens of vanished ships. Mr. Dettweiler has now turned from recovering lost treasures to prospecting for natural ones that litter the seabed: craggy deposits rich in gold and silver, copper and cobalt, lead and zinc."

"The debate over who should use the roads and paths of the country's national parks is consistently fraught. In California's Sequoia National Park, unkind words are sometimes exchanged when pack animals with their wide panniers encounter hikers kitted out with the latest R.E.I. gear on the trails behind Mount Whitney. The code of etiquette and safety governing such encounters is sometimes ignored, And there have been continual efforts to ban horses, burros and llamas because of their impact on the trails."