Currents

With a shortage of freshwater & other resources, Israeli farmers & researchers have gone innovative: recycling wastewater, restoring coral reefs & building weather-resistant structures.

Federal fisheries managers in charge of the West Coast announced last week that the commercial salmon fishing season was being closed off the coasts of California and Oregon, and that catch off Washington State would be severely restricted.

Environmentalists were quick to criticize a new climate action plan announced by the White House last week as being too little too late.

With even modest increases in sea levels will come the increased probability of destructive storms and flooding along the coastal regions of every continent.

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) reported that 1.8 million acres of private land within 55 existing U.S. national parks—so-called "in-holdings"—are on the National Park Service’s "wish list."

Last week, the federal government announced it had come to terms with four Indian tribes, agreeing to pay some $900 million to spur the recovery of endangered wild salmon runs across the Pacific Northwest.

During the school week, Sam Allen will sometimes skip his classes at Connecticut’s Weston High School and walk to the elementary or middle school down the street. One morning in February, he made his way into Weston Elementary School struggling with a green bag and six poster boards all while listening to music on his iPhone and answering calls. When he reached the second floor, he introduced himself to a class of fourth-graders and proceeded to tell them how they can help to save the planet.

A two-year moratorium on the purchase of soybeans in newly deforested parts of the Amazon rainforest put in place by Greenpeace, working with the Brazilian Vegetable Oils Industry Association, seems to be working: no new soybean plantations were detected in any of the 193 areas in the region.

Last week, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the Bush administration was waiving compliance with some 30 environmental and land management laws to expedite the completion of a 470-mile-long fence along the U.S./Mexico border to keep illegal immigration in check.