Biodiversity

"Global efforts to protect the world’s plants and animals have made slight progress and some species remain in serious decline, according to two reports released Monday at a major United Nations biodiversity summit in Colombia."

"There are only about 370 North Atlantic right whales left. Of those, an alarmingly small number are mothers. Squilla is one of them."

"Maine’s traditional fall hunting seasons are in full swing, but hunters are being asked to avoid eating their game in parts of the state because of the possibility of harmful chemicals in animal meat."

"More than a third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction, according to the first comprehensive assessment of trees by the world’s leading scientific authority on the status of species."

"Damage to oceans is releasing vast amounts of CO2, despite efforts to market fish as a sustainable food."

"New research provides evidence that chemicals used in farming may be more harmful to insects than previously thought, contributing to worldwide declines in important species."

"Enormous swathes of pristine forest are being cut down across Indonesia to supply the rapidly rising international demand for biomass material seen as critical to many countries’ transitions to cleaner forms of energy."

"The red-cockaded woodpecker, an iconic bird in southeastern forests, has recovered enough of its population to be downlisted from an endangered species to a threatened one, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday."

"New York, New Jersey and Delaware were accused in federal lawsuits Thursday of improperly allowing Atlantic sturgeon to be killed by commercial fishing operations even as the prehistoric fish is on the brink of disappearing."

"For the first time under President Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium mine has been approved for a Nevada project essential to his clean energy agenda, despite conservationists’ vows to sue over the plan, which they say will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction."