Biodiversity

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a federal judge had erred in prohibiting the planting of Monsanto’s genetically modified alfalfa seed until a federal government agency completed a detailed environmental review."

As nations meet in Morocco to consider whether to ban or allow whaling under the International Whaling Commission, Japan's bid to continue whaling is a hot issue. Despite Japan's defiant insistence on whale-hunting, few if any Japanese have any desire for whale meat.

"Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again."

"The EPA, declaring that endosulfan is unsafe for farm workers, moves to ban one of the last organochlorine pesticides left in the United States. Like DDT, endosulfan accumulates in the environment and in the bodies of people and wildlife, and is transported around the world to remote places."

An armada of crop-dusters is poised to attack billions of hungry high plains and Rocky Mountain grasshoppers in what is seen as the biggest plague in a generation.

A British herpetologist says snake populations have plummeted in Europe and Africa over the last 10 years. Just why is not clear.

"Ethiopia and Zimbabwe have added their first biosphere reserves to the network of reserves created by the United Nations to halt the loss of biodiversity and promote sustainable development. One of the two new Ethiopian reserves protects the place of origin of the plant Caffea Arabica, believed to be the first species of coffee ever cultivated."

The roundup of bison that have strayed from their refuge in Yellowstone National Park, part of a Quixotic plan to protect domestic cattle from the disease brucellosis, is an example of Western environmental gridlock.

"Actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio has joined with WWF-US in a new global campaign to save endangered tigers. With only an estimated 3,200 tigers left in the wild, WWF and DiCaprio today announced that the Save Tigers Now campaign will run during the Chinese Year of the Tiger, 2010."

Oil-soaked pelicans in some coastal marshes, coated with oil from the Gulf spill, can no longer fly. The number of miles of shoreline smothered in oil continues to grow, and the oil pushes further inland.