Archive for December 2021

In the 1980s, when the Philippines’ Energy Development Corporation, or EDC, began developing plans for a geothermal energy plant near Mount Apo, a dormant volcano on the southern island of Mindanao, it faced fierce resistance. Decades later, the geothermal plant is frequently cited as an example of a project that has fulfilled its commitments to […]

Chances are, if you live in North America, you’ve eaten corn from the Corn Belt, a region in the United States Midwest that produces 75% of U.S. corn. Scientists have found that around 35% of the region has lost its most fertile A-horizon soil, more commonly known as topsoil, since European colonization in the 1800s, […]

NASA’s Earth Observatory regularly publishes striking satellite images of our rapidly changing planet, this year showing everything from the massive fires in Greece and California to the historic floods in China and the Netherlands. These photos document the ways humans are remaking the planet, both by building dams, cities, and farms, and by fueling climate change, which, in turn, is spurring more drought, wildfires, floods, and other disasters. See how the Earth has changed in images taken over the past year.

Read more on E360 →

Combating illegal logging and deforestation in the tropical forests of southwest Myanmar helps preserve wildlife populations, but remains insufficient in the face of unsustainable local hunting pressures, a new study has found. Researchers, whose work was published in Animal Conservation in November, used camera trap data from between 2016 and 2019 to map the activity […]

ORE, Nigeria — More than two decades ago, fate took Tajudeen Babalola to his lifelong ambition. The 52-year-old longed for a more serene life that offered hope for survival away from the fake fancies of Lagos, Africa’s second-largest city and Nigeria’s commercial nerve center. One evening, after an exhausting shift of commercial driving, he received […]

All across the arid and semi-arid landscapes of Africa, grasslands meet the eye. These ecosystems provide a wealth of environmental services, sequestering immense amounts of carbon (grazing lands store up to 30% of the world’s soil carbon, by one estimate) and harboring tremendous biodiversity. This includes some of the world’s most iconic remaining megafauna, such […]

In the Argentine city of Rosario, an award-winning urban agriculture program is marking nearly two decades as a model for how to put local farming and agroecology at the heart of a system of equitable and sustainable development. Throughout this period, the program has manifested many of the benefits of such a system: improved public […]

Movement is a way of life among the Kel Tamasheq of northern Mali. Living near Timbuktu, the transhumance traditions of this branch of nomadic Tuaregs (or Touaregs) who speak Tamasheq have persisted since before the 15th century. According to Aboubacrine ag Mohamed Mitta, a member of the Kel Tamasheq people, their ancestors were pure nomads. They […]

SYABRUBESI, Nepal — Trucks stir up dust on the gravel road here in Syabrubesi, an eight-hour drive from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. From Syabrubesi, the road winds 11 kilometers (7 miles) north to the border with China, the only open route north since a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015 devastated much of the region. […]

A South African court has ordered oil giant Shell to suspend plans for seismic blasting along the country’s Wild Coast, in a decision hailed by environmentalists. The Dutch oil giant is prospecting off the coast of Eastern Cape province for viable oil and gas reserves below the seabed. “The case is not just about Shell […]