Natural Resources

"The country’s most-visited national park site, the Blue Ridge Parkway, will remain closed indefinitely, the National Park Service (NPS) said Wednesday. The closure affects the entire length of the Blue Ridge Parkway, though some parts were hit harder than others by storm damage. It comes right as the region and scenic road typically see a boom in tourism, as weather cools and the leaves change colors."

"Voting started Wednesday in the annual Fat Bear Week contest at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, with viewers picking their favorite among a dozen brown bears fattened up to survive the winter."

"Miners aim to meet a growing demand for emissions-free energy, though a failure to clean up old sites haunts the industry."

"Bethany Beach firefly, found in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, faces dangers to habitat because of climate change"

"Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California. Dengue, the world’s most common mosquito-borne illness, is not transmitted directly from insect to insect."

"A journalist who covered the land grab and deforestation of a community forest by a mining company has himself been charged with deforestation."

"Members of Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia want to conserve a pristine old-growth watershed, Caas Tl’aat Twah, in its traditional territory. The nation has obtained a logging deferral for Caas Tl’aat Twah and is planning how to protect it permanently."

"Imagine, for a moment, oil and gas infrastructure carving up Alaska’s far northern tundra, a refuge for migrating caribou and polar bears. Copper-nickel mines on the doorstep of one of the largest wilderness areas east of the Rockies, a nearly 1.1m-acre (450,000-hectare) expanse of pristine lakes and forests full of loons, wolves and moose. Or uranium and coal exploration in once-protected landscapes, including areas bordering the Grand Canyon."

"Stubborn drought in Ohio and the shifting weather patterns influenced by climate change appear to be affecting North America’s largest native fruit: the pawpaw."

"House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-Pa.) is meeting with congressional leaders on agricultural policy Thursday to try to secure a last-minute deal on passing the farm bill."