Natural Resources

"A new study looked at a group of forest lands that hold big conservation potential but aren’t adequately protected."

"A rare confirmation battle is brewing around the nomination of Andrew Wheeler, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald J. Trump, to take a similar role in an incoming Republican state administration in Virginia."

"As Congress marks the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, congressional investigators are probing whether a Trump White House aide pressured Interior Department and National Park Service officials over permitting for then-President Trump’s rally on the Ellipse."

"Andrew Wheeler, who served as head of EPA during the Trump administration, is returning to government service. Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) announced today he chose Wheeler as his secretary of natural resources. Wheeler will be the state’s top environmental official and oversee five agencies focusing on the environment, natural resources and recreation."

"Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role. That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.”"

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"In the village of Paguate as June Lorenzo’s grandmother knew it growing up, orchards and fields of wheat and corn carpeted nearby hillsides. Streams traversed a verdant valley where people hunted and grazed sheep near the small farming community in Laguna Pueblo. This was before a massive mine cratered the nearby land and altered the skyline. Lorenzo has looked for old photos of that landscape, but they’re hard to find. That place exists now only in stories from elders."

"The Sitka spruce soaring more than 180 feet skyward has stood on this spot on Prince of Wales Island for centuries. While fierce winds have contorted the towering trunks of its neighbors, the spruce’s trunk is ramrod straight. Standing apart from the rest of the canopy, it ascends to the height of a 17-story building."

"Scientists have found that the Corn Belt region of the U.S. Midwest, which produces 75% of U.S. corn, has lost around 35% of its most fertile topsoil since European colonization in the 1600s."

"Illegal gold mining in the north Amazonian territory of Brazil's indigenous Munduruku people has led to more than half of several hundred people tested showing unsafe mercury levels in their bodies, including children, health researchers say."

"OKLAHOMA CITY — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it plans to withdraw and reconsider a decision made under the Trump administration that allowed the state, not tribal nations, to regulate environmental issues in Indian Country."