Biodiversity

"Once hunted to the brink of extinction, fin whales in the Southern Ocean have rebounded and returned to their historic feeding grounds, according to a new survey."

"Deforestation of the Amazon hit a new record during the first half of 2022, the Brazilian Space Agency reported Friday, deepening concerns that the vast rainforest’s critical role in protecting the planet’s health will be irreparably damaged."

"Every day billions of people depend on wild flora and fauna to obtain food, medicine and energy. But a new United Nations-backed report says that overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing one million species towards extinction."

"The largest grove of giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park was closed Friday and hundreds of people ordered evacuated nearby as a wildfire burning through dense forest became the latest in recent years to threaten the world’s largest trees."

"For National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Arnold, it was a moment he’d been dreading. Bare-legged in sandals, he was pulling in a net in a shallow backwater of the lower Colorado River last week, when he spotted three young fish that didn’t belong there."

"A 2013 storm toppled the tree that had stood in the Ceiriog valley for 1,200 years – but now it lives on".

"South Sudan is moving ahead with plans for a 240-mile canal to divert water from the White Nile and send it to Egypt. But critics warn the megaproject would desiccate the world’s second largest wetland, impacting its rich wildlife and the rains on which the region depends."

"A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a host of actions by the Trump administration to roll back protections for endangered or threatened species, a year after the Biden administration said it was moving to strengthen such species protections."

"EPA has set new restrictions on the use of three commonly used pesticides, including the highly controversial chemical chlorpyrifos."