"For the first time a state government has submitted a petition to the federal government to set aside state-owned mountain ridgelines as unsuitable for coal surface mining."

"A proposal to designate more than 300,000 acres of wilderness in central Idaho appears to be in a political tailspin, dashing hopes among wilderness advocates that the Gem State could soon resolve a decades-long debate over management of its public lands."

"A large portion of fines that BP Plc may pay for its role in the worst oil spill in U.S. history should go toward fixing the damage caused to Gulf Coast states, a federal official said on Tuesday."

"A coalition of nine land trusts says it will reach a five-year goal of protecting 50,000 acres in Western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains."

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is set to present the Obama administration's coastal restoration plan in New Orleans. Perhaps no state is more anxious to see what's in the plan than Louisiana, which has lost hundreds of square miles of coastal land in the last century."

"Around 100 people have been arrested outside the White House while protesting against mountaintop removal mining, including NASA scientist James Hansen."

Egypt's 80 million people have always depended on the Nile River. Under a 1929 treaty, 80 percent of the river's flow is reserved for Egypt and Sudan, which were then ruled as a single country. Now the seven upstream countries (Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda) want to revise the treaty, calling it an unfair relic of colonialism.

"A new generation of prospectors is eager to explore the ocean floor. Will deep-sea digging damage one of the earth’s most valuable ecosystems?"

"The federal government should establish a trust fund to pay for coastal restoration  projects in states along the northern Gulf Coast, to be initially financed by penalties paid for violating federal laws, including 80 percent of any fines levied as a result of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, concludes a report released Tuesday by America's Energy Coast and its parent America's Wetland Foundation."