Environmental Glance
The illegal trade in tiger parts has led to more than 1,000 wild tigers being killed over the past decade, a report suggests. Traffic International, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found that skins, bones and claws were among the most common items seized by officials.
The trade continues unabated despite efforts to protect the cats, it warns. Over the past century, tiger numbers have fallen from about 100,000 individuals to just an estimated 3,500.
Illegal tiger trade 'killing 100 big cats each year'
What a scientist didn't tell the New York Times about his study on bee deaths
The long list of possible suspects has included pests, viruses, fungi, and also pesticides, particularly so-called neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. For years, their leading manufacturer, Bayer Crop Science, a subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG (BAYRY), has tangled with regulators and fended off lawsuits from angry beekeepers who allege that the pesticides have disoriented and ultimately killed their bees. The company has countered that, when used correctly, the pesticides pose little risk.
Texas vs. EPA climate rules
With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, powerful Texans such as Rep. Joe L. Barton of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have vowed to check the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to use its existing authority to curtail greenhouse gases.
An even more ambitious challenge is coming directly from the Texas state government and leading Texas politicians. State Attorney General Greg Abbott, with the support of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, has filed seven lawsuits against the EPA in the last nine months.
Dead Coral Found Near Site of Oil Spill
A survey of the seafloor near BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico has turned up dead and dying coral reefs that were probably damaged by the oil spill, scientists said Friday. The coral sites lie seven miles southwest of the well, at a depth of about 4,500 feet, in an area where large plumes of dispersed oil were discovered drifting through the deep ocean last spring in the weeks after the spill.
The large areas of darkened coral and other damaged marine organisms were almost certainly dying from exposure to toxic substances, scientists said.
BP Embraces Deepwater Risk as Dudley Rebuilds After $40 Billion Gulf Spill
BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Robert Dudley expects to drill in the U.S. Gulf for 20 years as the company exploits its experience searching for oil miles below the sea.
“Companies like BP, one of the roles they play in the industry is working in riskier areas,” Dudley, 55, said in an interview at BP’s worldwide London headquarters yesterday. BP “is now going to become incredibly focused on managing the risks, for example, of deep-water. It’s not going to shy away from the risk, it’s going to get even better at it.”
Historic deal aims to halt mass extinctions
A historic deal to halt the mass extinction of species was finally agreed last night in what conservationists see as the most important international treaty aimed at preventing the collapse of the world's wildlife.
Delegates from more than 190 countries meeting in Nagoya, Japan, agreed at the 11th hour on an ambitious conservation programme to protect global biodiversity and the natural habitats that support the most threatened animals and plants.
One fifth of animal and plant species are under the threat of extinction
Scientists who compiled the Red List of Threatened Species say the proportion of species facing wipeout is rising. But they say intensive conservation work has already pulled some species back from the brink of oblivion.
The report is being launched at the UN Biodiversity Summit in Japan, where governments are discussing how to better protect the natural world. Launched at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting, the report says that amphibians remain the most threatened category of animals, with 41% of species at risk, while only 13% of birds qualify for Red-Listing.
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