Natural Resources

"After their homeowner association ordered them to replace their wildlife-friendly plants with turf grass, a Maryland couple sued. They ended up changing state law."

"A boom in small-scale gold mining in Bolivia has raised concerns about pollution from mercury used in the mining process. Researchers are citing the health impacts on downstream villages, but the government has yet to act to stem the widespread use of the highly toxic chemical."

"Whitebark pine trees can live more than 1,000 years, but in just two decades more than a quarter of the trees that are a key food source for some grizzly bears have been killed by disease, climate change, wildfires and voracious beetles, government officials said as they announced federal protections Wednesday."

"A Nevada wildflower was declared endangered at the only place it’s known to exist — on a high-desert ridge where a lithium mine is planned to help meet growing demand for electric car batteries, U.S. wildlife officials announced Wednesday."

"Delegates from dozens of developing nations walked out of crunch financing talks overnight at the U.N. COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal, citing a lack of compromise from wealthy countries as negotiations intensify to agree a new global nature pact."

"Nomad Tsering Angchuk vows to stay put in his remote village in India’s Ladakh region. His two sons and most of his fellow villagers have migrated to a nearby urban settlement but Angchuk is determined to herd his flock of fine cashmere-producing goats in the treeless Kharnak village, a hauntingly beautiful but unforgiving, cold mountainous desert."

"Dead and dying seabirds collected on the coasts of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas over the past six years reveal how the Arctic’s fast-changing climate is threatening the ecosystems and people who live there, according to a report released Tuesday by U.S. scientists."

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged New Zealand to take a leading role in focusing on the environmental destruction his country is suffering as a result of Russia’s invasion."

"As humans warm the planet, the once reliably frigid and frozen Arctic is becoming wetter and stormier, with shifts in its climate and seasons that are forcing local communities, wildlife and ecosystems to adapt, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region."

"On a mountainside high above Peru’s capital, Javier Obispo pauses from the backbreaking work of renovating an amuna. The abandoned irrigation dike distributed water before Europeans came to South America."