"The Trump administration has announced it will keep flying a rainbow Pride flag at Stonewall National Monument in New York City, according to Associated Press. The announcement was made as the administration agrees to settle a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ and historic preservation groups seeking to block the flag’s removal, which occurred in February."
"The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization, announced “Erasing American History” as the subject of its annual thematic Landslide report about threatened landscapes and landscape features and issued a call for nominations. As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence approaches, the United States is simultaneously also witnessing the erasure of irreplaceable cultural resources that reflect and interpret our shared history."
As the Trump administration and its allies seek to stifle free speech and paint protest as domestic terrorism, Voices columnist Yessenia Funes argues that environmental journalists must heed the impact on the environmental movement we cover. Start with what happened in Standing Rock, which swept back into the news this spring. Funes explains the connection, and where we may be headed.
"Newsom promised to help a Native tribe restore sacred salmon to their ancestral river. Now California is ending the funding. The fish made it back to their ancestral waters for the first time in 80 years — so why is California walking away now?"
"As night falls over a nature park on the edge of Kyiv, children crowd around volunteers who carefully open cloth bags and release bats into the twilight."
"RJ Laverne’s childhood home in Detroit had a big elm out front. In fact, the whole neighborhood was lined with them: great, graceful trees whose branches spread across the street to create a shady canopy. Elms were so widely planted in cities and suburbs in the 19th and 20th centuries that they became known as the “Main Street tree.” Then, in the 1930s, Dutch elm disease began to ravage them, and by 1989, most of America’s 77 million mature elms were dead."
"Thousands of protesters gathered at the steps of the Texas Capitol Saturday to protest against the construction of a border wall through Big Bend, in a show of bipartisan opposition to the White House’s plans."
"The U.S. Bureau of Land Management opened a seven-day public comment period on March 31 as part of its proposal to open 336,425 acres of public lands in the Greater Chaco Region in New Mexico to oil and gas drilling. If the proposal moves forward, new oil and gas leasing and development on federal lands will be allowed within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, even on lands directly bordering the park."
"A planned 1.3-mile wall across Mount Cristo Rey has drawn opposition from environmentalists and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces"
Reporting on species who are gone forever can be disheartening, but don’t let that stop you. After more than two decades on the extinction beat, John R. Platt has learned this work can also be deeply rewarding. He explains why he’s stuck with it and why other journalists should consider joining him in telling the stories of vanishing animals and plants.
