With 2023 expected to see record amounts of brown macroalgae washing up on Caribbean beaches, green entrepreneurs in Mexico are turning waste into biogas, biofertilizer and even faux leather; all despite big bureaucratic hurdles.
Last year, a car fueled by human waste toured the European countryside, covering more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). It was the culmination of To-Syn-Fuel, a pathfinding project using technology…
LAGOS — Across Atorin-Ijesha in southwestern Nigeria, the clatter of stones fills the air as excavators aggressively dig into the soil. Gold miners work from dawn till dusk excavating the…
Pollution from a variety of sources is driving up the incidence of resistance to the compounds used to treat infections, according to a report released by the United Nations Environment…
Zambians launch lead poisoning lawsuit against mining giant Anglo American A group of 140,000 women and children from Zambia’s Kabwe district is seeking to bring a class action lawsuit against…
In an effort to feed 170 million people in a rapidly growing economy, Bangladeshi farmers rely on the widespread use of chemical fertilizers to boost production, leaving the country’s soil…
The tobacco supply chain has harmful consequences for forests, oceans and the climate, and also for farmers and their families who produce the crop — all to an extent that is not yet fully known.
KATHMANDU– When German professor Jochen Martens and his associate W. Schawaller visited subtropical forests in Nepal in 1988, they collected samples of different insects found in eastern Nepal, including a “bizarre”…
BANDUNG, Indonesia — In a valley downstream from the source of the Citarum River, retired army general Doni Monardo approaches a magnolia tree planted in 2018 by President Joko Widodo…
BANYUMAS/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A muddy flood polluting a river on the Indonesian island of Java earlier this year depleted its fish stock, raising calls for restoration and restocking efforts in…
Ban Khao Mo, THAILAND — Standing in the house where she has lived since she was born 45 years ago, Premsinee Suntornthammathat points to the temple where her grandparents took…
The summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park in the northeastern U.S. state of Maine offers sweeping, unobstructed views of Frenchman Bay. Surrounded by islands and rocky shorelines, the…
The central coast of Peru is cleaning up after a catastrophe due to a large oil spill on Jan. 15, 2022. The environmental emergency occurred after a pipe ruptured between…
7.8 billion people produce a lot of waste, but governments, entrepreneurs and NGOs are developing a host of technologies that work with nature to transform a dirty problem into a suite of elegant sustainable solutions.
It doesn’t get talked about much, but 7.8 billion humans make a lot of waste, and a lot of it is flowing into the planet’s rivers, estuaries and oceans, with major impacts on clean water, biodiversity and public health.
Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state. They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
On Feb. 8, 2019, two weeks after the collapse of a dam holding mining waste killed 272 people and left a trail of destruction in Brumadinho, in the Brazilian state…
MIAMI — Along the Miami shoreline, luxury high-rises and condominiums run parallel to Biscayne Bay, one of South Florida’s most biodiverse ecosystems, characterized by its once abundant coral reefs, seagrass…
It started in October 2017. A swarm of microscopic algae called Karenia brevis amassed in the waters off Florida’s southwest coast, turning the ocean a rust-red hue. The algae, which…
Growing up in Sweden, environmental scientist Johan Rockström always knew the southern of the two peaks of Mount Kebnekaise was the highest point in the country. But thanks to climate…
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
A healthy coral reef system is like a well-managed city. Each resident fish has a job in maintaining the reef: some nibble away at seaweed threatening to smother the coral,…
Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.
Native Brazilian bees provide several environmental services – pollination of flora and agricultural crops being the most important one. But new studies show that pesticides may affect them more intensely.
The amount that the Brazilian government fails to collect because of tax exemptions on pesticides is nearly four times as much as the Ministry of the Environment’s total budget this year. In addition, multinational giants in the pesticide sector also receive millions in public funding for research.
The scale of excavation for copper and gold in the 1970s and 1980s at the Panguna mine, then one of the world’s largest open-pit mines, was massive: It swallowed up…
A survey of 40,000 existing and 3,700 planned dams finds that the structures could fragment fish habitat in the Amazon, Niger, Congo, Salween and Mekong river systems by 25% or more.
Beekeepers fear an even greater die-off from 2020 onward, as Bolsonaro government approves a swath of pesticides, including those known to be toxic to bees.
The dourada, one of the Amazon’s goliath catfish species, plus other commercially valuable migratory fish stocks crashed after Santo Antônio and Jirau dams were built, say researchers.