Agriculture

"It was just before sunrise in July when the botanists Naomi Fraga and Maria Jesus threw on backpacks and crunched their way across a brittle alkaline flat in the hottest corner of the Mojave Desert. Their mission: to rescue a tiny plant teetering on the brink of extinction."

"A federal judge on Monday struck down a Trump-era environmental rule that drastically limited federal restrictions against pollution of millions of streams, wetlands and marshes across the country."

"The Washington State Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced that it located and eradicated the first nest of Asian giant hornets, better known by the much more catchy murder hornets, in the state this year."

"An environmental group that wants to end public-land grazing has outbid a rancher in central Idaho for a grazing lease on state land that includes habitat for bull trout and steelhead."

"Three common neonicotinoid insecticides were ruled "likely to adversely affect" thousands of endangered species and critical habitats, according to draft biological evaluations released by EPA on Thursday, Aug. 26."

"Heads up: There's an unwelcome visitor in Pennsylvania and officials are urging residents to take caution. The spotted lanternfly has been moving in and threatening agriculture and trees, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture."

"As climate change brings longer, more destructive fire seasons, the wine industry scrambles to protect vineyards from the dreaded taint of smoke."

"Water cuts aimed at farmers amid the West’s megadrought have set the stage for bitter legal and political fights over one of the most overlooked water uses—the right of water to remain in streams to sustain fish and endangered species, lawyers say."

"Numbers of the country’s carrion-loving birds dropped by over 97% in the 1990s. Now, a successful breeding scheme is giving them a boost".