Natural Resources

"Lisa Schulte Moore loves nature. To stand in an old-growth forest, she says, 'I can only describe it as healing.' When she moved to Iowa to teach ecology at Iowa State University, she didn't get that same feeling when she found herself amid acres of corn. She wasn't hearing birds or seeing many bugs. 'All I can hear are the leaves of the rustling corn,' she says. 'Not one biological noise. You know, they call it the green desert.'"

"Brazil’s government on Monday fired an official at the national space agency Inpe whose department is responsible for satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest, just three days after the release of June deforestation data reflected a continued increase in degradation."

"Tuomas Siilasjoki and Minna Näkkäläjärvi say they were taken by surprise when a mobile drill rig one day appeared in the horizon. Nobody had asked them about exploring for minerals inside their siida, a reindeer foraging area, in northern Finland. The Sámi families here in Tarvantovaara wilderness area fear the world's hunger for metals to ramp up the green economy will destroy their indigenous way of life."

"Northern Ontario's muskeg serves as home to dozens of First Nations, stores immense amounts of carbon and sits on top of vast mineral deposits. Whose vision for the bogs and fens will win out?"

"In a win for conservation interests and tribal nations, a panel of federal judges Wednesday upheld a decision to restore grizzly bear protections in the Yellowstone region."

"The federal government on Tuesday decided to scrap plans to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades ecosystem in Washington state."

"Dozens of Brazilian corporations are calling for a crackdown on illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest, expressing their concerns in a letter Tuesday to the vice president, who heads the government’s council on that region."

"Audio of the forceful push led by U.S. Park Police to sweep protesters out of Lafayette Square on June 1, moments before President Trump’s visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church, was not recorded by the Park Police radio communications system, the agency said Tuesday."

"Public lands infrastructure projects being fast-tracked as a Covid-19 pandemic response under a June 4 executive order will be kept from public view, the White House said Tuesday. Environmental attorneys and other legal practitioners say the White House’s shroud over the expedited projects suggests that the administration’s efforts to use the economic fallout from Covid-19 to circumvent environmental regulations may not be legal."

"As the territorial government works toward a mineral development strategy, Carcross/Tagish First Nation urges an overhaul of the free entry system that it says puts rights in the hands of miners and removes it from Indigenous Peoples".