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A top Thai conservation official was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday, with police saying he was caught receiving a bribe and that $144,000 in cash was found in his office. Rutchada Suriyakul na Ayutya, director-general of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, was appointed in February. He managed efforts to protect the kingdom’s environment and endangered animals, overseeing more than 150 national parks. “The officials have arrested him while the money […]
by Joed Viera, with Daniel Stublen in Washington Agence France-Presse BUFFALO, United States (AFP) — The monster storm that killed dozens in the United States over the weekend continued to inflict misery on New York state and air travelers nationwide Tuesday, as stories emerged of families trapped for days during the “blizzard of the century.” The number of deaths attributed to the winter storm rose to more than 50 after officials confirmed three more fatalities […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain’s National Trust on Wednesday said nature and wildlife at the charity’s sites had been harmed by extreme weather in the past year and warned it could become the “new normal”. The heritage conservation charity’s climate change adviser Keith Jones said it was a “stark illustration of the sort of difficulties many of our species will face if we don’t do more to mitigate rising temperatures”. “We’re going to experience […]
by Joed Viera Agence France-Presse BUFFALO, United States (AFP) — Emergency crews in New York were scrambling Monday to rescue marooned residents from what authorities called the “blizzard of the century,” a relentless storm that has left at least 25 dead in the state and is causing US holiday travel chaos. Blizzard conditions continue to prevail in parts of the US Northeast, the stubborn remnants of a massive sprawl of extreme weather that gripped the […]
PARIS, France (AFP) – Even as animals and plants face widespread extinction from human-driven causes like climate change, the natural world continues to inspire scientific discovery in unexpected ways. “Nature has spent hundreds of millions of years optimizing elegant solutions to extremely complicated problems,” said Alon Gorodetsky, a biomedical engineer at the University of California, Irvine. “So if we look to nature, we can shortcut our development process and get to a valuable solution right away,” […]
Goma, DR Congo (AFP) M23 rebel activity in volatile eastern DR Congo is threatening mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park and leaving the endangered species vulnerable to poachers, a spokesman said on Tuesday. About a third of the global population of mountain gorillas lives in the park, a renowned wildlife reserve spanning 7,800 square kilometres (3,000 square miles) on the border with neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda. But M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of […]
by Issam Ahmed and Roland Lloyd Parry Agence France-Presse MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Countries reached a historic deal on Monday to reverse decades of environmental destruction threatening the world’s species and ecosystems, in what the UN chief hailed as “a peace pact with nature.” After the marathon COP 15 biodiversity summit in Montreal ran into the small hours, chair Chinese Environment Minister Huang Runqiu, declared the deal adopted and banged his gavel, sparking loud applause. […]
by Benjamin LEGENDRE Agence France-Presse MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Creating a new global fund for biodiversity — a core demand of developing countries at UN talks in Montreal — “would take years” and be less effective than reforming existing financial mechanisms, Canada’s environment minister said Tuesday. Ottawa’s position reflects the consensus among developed nations on the thorny issue, which has emerged as a key sticking point in negotiations to hammer out a new global pact […]
Oslo, Norway (AFP) One in five cars on Norway’s roads are electric, a share that has doubled in less than three years, the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association said Monday. “The snowball is rolling faster and faster and a growing number of good electric car models are on Norway’s roads”, the head of the association, Christina Bu, said on its website. While it took almost 10 years for the country’s electric car fleet to go […]
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AFP) — One of the most active volcanoes in Central America erupted over the weekend, spewing lava and ash and forcing Guatemalan authorities to briefly close the country’s largest airport before activity eased on Sunday. The volcano named Fuego — Spanish for fire — rumbled into activity overnight Saturday into Sunday, with molten rock oozing down its slopes and ash belching two kilometers (more than a mile) into the sky. Winds carried […]
by Jeremie RICHARD Agence France Presse In a dark auditorium in Reykjavik, bubbling orange lava flows down a slide to within inches of awe-struck visitors. The flow, contained on both sides by black sand, lights up the room like a sunrise. This is the Lava Show, Iceland’s latest tourist attraction, that uses reheated lava from a real eruption of the island’s Katla volcano more than 100 years ago. The heat emanating from the molten rock […]
UN biodiversity talks opened in Montreal on Wednesday, in what is being billed as the “last best chance” to save the planet’s species and ecosystems from irreversible human destruction. What do all of these species have in common? They have all gone extinct due to human activities. Extinction is a natural process and, in fact, 99% of the four billion species that have existed on our planet have disappeared. It is balanced by the evolution […]
