Trucks full of gunmen sought to kill 64-year old Sister Leonora Brunetto, who had spent decades trying to keep ranchers from stealing Amazon land. "Impunity in the Amazon because of a weak judicial system and corruption among local officials is endemic, a problem not only for people like Brunetto, but for the Brazilian government trying to preserve a rain forest the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi. More than 20 percent of the forest already has been destroyed."

"Europe's best known landmarks -- including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Rome's Colosseum -- fell dark Saturday, following Sydney's Opera House and Beijing's Forbidden City in joining a global climate change protest, as lights were switched off across the world to mark the Earth Hour event."

"Honorary Sierra Club President and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Dr. Edgar Wayburn died late Friday night at his home in San Francisco in the presence of his family. He was 103."

"No one can accuse Naomi Davis of lacking ambition. She wants simultaneously to rebuild black America and save the planet -- one neighborhood at a time. She knows she cannot do either alone. Her plan is to recruit and train an army. A green army."

"In the early 1980s, the cancer deaths of four little girls — whose bodies were so tiny they could fit in shoe boxes — forced Hazel Johnson to shift the focus of an organization she'd recently founded."

"Anti-whaling activists are returning to Australia after an engine problem forced them to end this season's Antarctic campaign against Japanese whalers."

"Some local chapters of environmental groups find themselves battling their national leadership over issues like natural gas. The national groups see natural gas as a less-harmful alternative to coal. But local groups fear the damage that gas production could bring to their fresh water and landscapes."

"Greenpeace and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's office are in a battle of words over her effort to block U.S. EPA from regulating greenhouse gases."

"A national environmental group with deep pockets and specialized legal expertise is joining the effort to block a permit for one of the [Kansas City] area’s biggest development projects."

"Environmentalists, fishermen and others in the Copper River region are spearheading a new effort to boost citizen monitoring of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- Environmental group Sierra Club has named its first new leader in 18 years -- an activist who once took over the intercom of a Home Depot to tell customers not to buy lumber from ancient forests."

"The futuristic anti-whaling protest boat struck by a Japanese harpoon vessel near Antarctica finally sank on Friday, prompting Australia to voice official concern about safety in the remote Southern Ocean."

A Japanese whaling vessel hit and sunk a stealth-technology trimaran speedboat used by the Sea Shepherd Society to harass that nation's "research" whaling, which supplies the nation's appetite for otherwise-illegal whale meat. All the activists were rescued and none were seriously injured, according to early reports. Two videos show the incident from two perspectives, as each side blamed the other.

"Sammy Haddock started working with elephants when he joined the circus at 20, in 1976, a young man's dream. He walked them, groomed them, cleaned up after them. More than once, he later confessed, he beat them."

"Hardline anti-whaling activists prepared on Tuesday to pursue Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet with support from Daryl Hannah, who criticized Greenpeace for opting out of the annual chase."