Publication archives

Malaysia's lucrative palm oil industry and unabated logging are destroying native lands in eastern Sarawak state, while indigenous people are left in extreme poverty, an environment group said Tuesday.

New Zealand's plantation forestry estate will shrink this year for the first time since planting began, the Forest Owners Association says. This is because the forest land harvested and turned to other uses or not replanted will exceed new plantings.

Brazil's military has been distributing supplies and medicine to tens of thousands of people stranded by the dramatic drop in water levels. Witnesses say rivers and lakes have dried up completely, leaving behind kilometres of sand and mud. Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has blamed deforestation and global warming for the drought.

Legislation aimed at preventing foreign fish, clams and marine creatures from entering the Great Lakes in oceangoing ships is languishing in Congress while the shipping industry pushes a less restrictive bill.

Deep in the forest, miles from anything resembling a town, even logging roads and rutted four-wheeler paths dissolve. That's when J.P. Anderson gears down his battered Suzuki Samurai, crashing up the side of a mountain with bone-rattling force.

Deforestation is often wrongly blamed for causing floods, like in Guatemala this month, under a myth that has skewed agricultural policies, an international report said on Thursday.

The Kenya Ports Authority has been asked to help stop illegal exportation of chippings of a local tree species. At the same time, the Environment and Natural Resources ministry wants the plant, Osyris lanceolata, accorded presidential protection to facilitate the prosecution of poachers.