Publication archives

The federal government has identified 2,644 acres in Minnesota's Superior National Forest for possible sale, under a U.S. Forest Service plan that would sell isolated parcels of land to maintain payments to rural schools. The Bush administration has proposed selling more than 300,000 acres of national forest in all, to raise $800 million to pay for rural schools in 41 states.

Nothing is more exhilarating than the first days of spring, when the air practically vibrates with the pent-up vigor of growing things. Warm sunlight filters down through budding forests, and the rich smell of humus wafts up from their floors. Then, amid the decaying leaves and grasses, we find the first spring ephemerals.

When Duke Welter drove the 225 miles from his home in Eau Claire, Wis., to Galena, Ill., in 2004 to attend a Trout Unlimited (TU) meeting, he crossed and traveled along scores of streams and rivers, many of which, he noted, bore the scars of a neglected past.

Annie Kajir was just 24 when she won a precedent-setting case in the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea against illegal logging.

In drama, the uninvited visitor is a common plot device. Everyone is getting along swimmingly until a new character arrives and upsets the apple cart. Things quickly fall apart.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators massed Sunday on the international bridge connecting Argentina with Uruguay, protesting Uruguay's plans to finish two wood-pulp mills that opponents fear will pollute the environment.

The fabled glaciers on Tanzania's majestic mountain will soon be gone. Its forests are disappearing, too. For local farmers, this could mean disaster. For the rest of us, it's another unbearable loss on an overheating planet.

Plants that can offer cures for many serious diseases could be lost because of deforestation in Borneo, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Such plants could be used in the fight against cancer, Aids and malaria, the conservation group said in a report.