While most people are busy swatting, stomping and spraying, members of the Oregon-based Xerces Society are dedicated to preserving a class of animals many of us consider pets, when we consider them at all.

Flying over the turqiose waters of Florida Bay where George Bush used to fish, Robert Finegold of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary points down to the "battlefield"–rows and rows of tomatoes planted straight as a ruler. The crops are bordered on the north by the Everglades, the east by the Keys and the Atlantic, and the west by the Gulf of Mexico. Northeastern salad-eaters depend on these tomatoes each winter. And proud farmers consider these 5,200 acres among the most productive in the U.S.

Like ancient China, Russia once had a wall to protect itself against invaders–but this wall was green. From the 14th to the 18th century, Russia’s czars kept a thick belt of forest uncut along their southern border to block attacks by Tatar nomads roaming the sparsley forested plains of Central Asia. Within the belt, the Russians dug trenches and felled trees to make the forest impassible to the nomads’ cavalry and wagons. Most of the "Green Wall of Russia" still stands today, ranging from one to 10 kilometers thick. Originally some 375 miles long, 84 percent still remains preserved, centuries after much of the surrounding land has been cleared for farmland.

When Idaho educator Dean Paschall decided to teach his high school science students about the environment, he discovered "a real void of environmental curricula at the secondary level." Taking matters into his own hands, he created Earth Time, a curriculum designed to inspire students to take responsibility for the health of their surrounding environment and to provide them with hands-on tools for change.

Greenpeace’s Nuclear Free Seas campaign heated up last July at a 10,000 Maniacs concert in Groton, Connecticut–a military industry area that, like many across the country, has been hard hit by both peace and the economy. Greenpeace has been touring with the band, setting up information booths and distributing literature at each stop. The Groton concert, however, turned out to be on a U.S. submarine base, where Navy officials wouldn’t allow Greenpeace to set up its booth, not even just to answer questions.

The drab white linoleum hallways of the US. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters hardly prepare you for the penthouse suite of offices that is administrator Carol Browner’s world. The walls have imitation Audubon bird prints, the picture windows overlook the grassy banks along the Potomac River, and a small crew of secretaries sound like air traffic controllers trying to land appointments far down Browner’s schedule. As I’m ushered into her office, which seems like a living room with its white couch and elegant wooden bookcases, a photographer adjusts his white light umbrella and Browner greets me warmly. She began the day at a White House ceremony, where President Clinton unveiled his Northwest Forest Plan, and after our visit she must huddle with her aides about a crisis over the North American Free Trade Agreement. But for 20 minutes, her time is ours. She looks radiant in a short dusky blue dress and big golden earrings that shine under her short brunette haircut. Unlike press photos in which she seems tight-lipped and stiff-shouldered, she’s very animated in person–smiling, waving her hands, checking the tape recorder, tackling questions before i finish asking them.