Natural Resources

"The Bird Banding Laboratory has turned duck hunters into citizen scientists. What happens if it is defunded?" 

"First, a filthy Chesapeake Bay represented all that wasn’t working with America’s stewardship of its natural environment. Then, the bay became a success story. The sloughs of poorly treated sewage at the bottom of slime-green lagoons disappeared, and oyster populations, once nearly wiped out, made a near-miraculous comeback. ... In recent years, however, progress has stalled."

"As Americans flock to the country’s coasts — and to the lakes and rivers in between — in the heat of summer, they may be doing so despite the presence of fecal matter."

"It’s time to rethink the American lawn: a landscaping default that sucks up money, water, chemicals, and time."

"America’s treeless, isolated expanse put early European settlers to the test. Drought, loneliness, and debt drove many to failure, forcing the homesteaders to retreat East. But those who stayed unwittingly launched one of history’s largest terraforming projects, rewiring the land, the climate, and the future of the continent."

"Federal officials on Monday took a first step toward reopening vast areas of public lands in two Western states to new coal sales as part of President Donald Trump’s push to expand U.S. fossil fuel production."

"Researchers and hatcheries are exploring new ways to protect shellfish in the Pacific Northwest, although Trump budget cuts may thwart their efforts."

"When you stand on the edge of Bayan Obo, all you see is an expanse of scarred grey earth carved into the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in northern China. Dark dust clouds rise from deep craters where the earth’s crust has been sliced away over decades in a search of modern treasure."

"The saguaro cactus is the iconic plant of the Arizona borderlands, and in June and early July, its thorn-covered small fruit ripens. For members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose ancestors have lived in this hot desert for thousands of years, harvest time for the “bahidaj” is sacred."