More than a half million hill tribe members, nomadic for centuries, live without regard to modern political boundaries in scattered villages throughout the broadleaf forest mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, and the famous Golden Triangle region of South East Asia. Historically, they moved across the mountains methodically by slashing and burning, planting mountain rice, and staying while the soil remained fertile. Now the Thai government has told them to stop moving.

In a recent In These Times column, former Sierra Club President Adam Werbach muses on how great it would be to send certain Bush-era officials packing in the first days of the John Kerry administration. Taking that idea a step further, Kerry could take the opportunity to appoint a true "Green Dream Team" to make sure the environment wins in 2004 and beyond.

While researchers have been warning of the decline of many seafood fish stocks in oceans around the globe for years, idle commercial fishermen from every seaport and island community are finally feeling the bite, verifying the dire state of affairs.

Soon after the announcement about plans to take the bald eagle off the endangered species list, the Bush administration says that gray wolves have rebounded so well in the Great Lakes region that they, too, no longer need Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection in the eastern half of the U.S.

Last week, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a nonpartisan watchdog group, reported a critical shortage of staff in America’s national parks. NPCA research shows that across the system, national parks operate on average with only two-thirds of the needed funding, constituting a system-wide shortfall that exceeds $600 million annually. This deficit has led to reduced staff in many parks, which in turn jeopardizes the quality of people’s visits, the preservation of natural treasures and cultural resources.

Indonesia is set to lose its last remaining tiger species–the Sumatran tiger–if the widespread illegal trade in tiger parts and rampant habitat loss is not stopped, according to a joint report issued by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

According to an analysis released last week by the Department of Energy (DOE), opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil development would only slightly reduce America’s dependence on imports and would lower oil prices by less than 50 cents a barrel.

An amendment to reinstate the "polluter-pays" principle on Superfund clean-up sites failed to gain enough votes in the Senate last week. Environmentalists are optimistic though that the idea enjoyed bi-partisan support and put additional pressure on the Bush administration to prioritize the health and safety of communities over the bottom lines of corporate polluters.

Citing the conservative gospel of states’ rights and forest fire protection, the Bush administration announced last week that it was replacing the "roadless rule" established by outgoing President Clinton with a new plan that would require state governors to petition the Forest Service to block any road-building in their states for logging purposes. While the controversial Clinton plan had closed off 58 million acres of inaccessible and in some cases pristine Forest Service lands to road building and ensuing timber extraction, the new plan puts the onus on governors—many of whom won office on the merits of their pro-development positions—to keep loggers out.

According to EPA officials, DuPont, the country’s second-largest chemical manufacturer, violated the federal Toxic Substances Control Act from June 1981 to March 2001 by not reporting health risks from exposure to the main ingredient in Teflon, its non-stick cookware coating and carpet protection product.