As if songbirds didn’t have enough to contend with! Not only is their Latin American winter habitat threatened as forest canopy coffee growing gives way to full-sun plantations (see "Grounds for Change," cover story, November/ December 2005), but a recent survey of the birds in New York State finds they’re also dealing with high body levels of mercury.
This May marked the first time any species of Caribbean coral was designated as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (see "Clouds Over the Coral," Features, March/April 1999). The two species added, staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and elkhorn (Acropora palmata), have both suffered a 97 percent decline since the late 1970s due to a combination of disease and human disturbance. By far the greatest culprit, however, is coral bleaching caused by rising ocean temperatures.
In El Portugues, a small fishing camp in Mexico’s Baja California Sur, moustachioed fishermen with tobacco-colored skin glide to shore in 21-foot panga boats and unload their modest catch of small sharks and devil rays. It seems innocuous enough, given that most of the sharks, skates and rays (a class known as elasmobranches) are being harvested via small-scale, non-industrialized methods. But according to a two-year survey led by Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, Florida, there are 147 fishing camps along the Gulf of California supporting 4,000 to 5,500 active pangas targeting elasmobranches.
Today, the 1.3 million-square-foot structure that once served as a Montgomery Ward warehouse and a rotting symbol of Baltimore’s decay is not only the city’s largest office building, but it also serves as the area’s most extensive use of green design and technology.
For most visitors to the Big Island of Hawaii, the beautiful black sand beach at Punalu in the rural district of Kau is synonymous with one thing: giant sea turtles. But these awesomely beautiful marine reptiles may soon lose their visitation rights. Sea Mountain Five, a collaboration of California and Big Island investors, has recently proposed building a 2,000-unit resort complex on the site, which had previously hosted several failed hotel development plans. Environmentalists worry that the complex would put turtles, especially the critically endangered hawksbill, at risk.
More than 90 percent of Ghanaians still rely on fuel wood or charcoal as their main source of energy. According to government estimates, every person in Ghana uses around 1,400 pounds of fuel wood annually—the bulk of it for cooking. Along with logging, agricultural practices and mining, reliance on fuel wood contributes to the depletion of two percent of Ghana’s forest annually. In an effort to curb this rapid decline, the United Nations, in partnership with the government and local groups, is promoting the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — butane or propane—as an alternative to wood fuel.
Woodbury County, Iowa became the first government in the U.S. to financially support organics when the board of supervisors voted last year to give a property tax rebate to farmers transitioning to organic. Since then, Woodbury officials have also passed a law that requires the county’s food service contractor to purchase organic food grown and processed within 100 miles of the county courthouse whenever available.
Record gas prices have prompted heated debate about the root causes, leading some to point their fingers at ethanol, which in the U.S. is usually made from corn (see "Grass to Gas," Currents, May/June 2005). Congress had recently mandated replacement of the groundwater pollutant methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) with ethanol, another additive that decreases pollution when blended with gasoline.
Prairie dogs are keystone species that endangered black-footed ferrets depend on for survival. But a century of mismanagement has reduced prairie dogs to five percent of their historic numbers (see "Open Season on "Varmints,"" cover story, July/August 2004). "The political climate for prairie dog conservation remains abysmal," says Erin Robertson of Center for Native Ecosystems.
Another prenatal precaution has been added to the running list: don’t breathe! A number of studies have concluded exposure to air pollution, such as that found routinely in major American cities, can adversely affect fetal development (see "Womb Pollution?" In Brief, November/December 2004).
