The United States Justice Department has filed a federal lawsuit against Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche that seeks billions of dollars in penalties over claims that the car companies installed devices to deliberately misreport emissions. Nearly 600,000 diesel-engine vehicles were installed with these devices since 2009.
The British Overseas Territory of Ascension Island is set to become a marine reserve almost as big as the UK, the British government has announced. Using a £300,000 grant from the Bacon Foundation, the UK government will close 52.6% of the south Atlantic island's waters to fishing. In the rest of the waters there will be a monitored tuna fishery.
By Gwynne Dyer -The climate deal that almost 200 countries agreed to in Paris was far better than most insiders dared to hope even one month ago. The biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, are finally on board. There is real money on the table to help poor countries cut their emissions and cope with warming.
In a move that is likely to put a major dent in South Africa’s canned hunting industry for lions — a practice involving the shooting of these majestic predators in fenced enclosures in a pay-to-slay arrangement— the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced that it will institute important new measures to protect lions under the Endangered Species Act.
For the eighth season, Argentina's Antarctic bases and stations are to be supplied by the Russian polar vessel Vasily Golovnin from Arkadia Ltd. This has been going on since 2007 when the Argentine flagship ice-breaker Almirante Irizar caught fire in the high seas and is still in repairs waiting for the necessary funds.
Reclaiming South Georgia is the story of the SGHT Habitat Restoration Project fieldwork that took place on South Georgia in three phases (in 2011, 2013 and 2015). The latest edition of South Georgia Newsletter says that text and photographs tell the story of how this world-leading project baited every square inch of rodent-infested land on the island.
Deforestation is one of the main causes of the floods in South America that have left at least 160,000 people, 25,000 of them in Argentina alone, homeless, environmental groups said.
The new five-year Strategy for South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands 2016-2020 was published on 27th November. The Strategy sets out an ambitious agenda to deliver the highest standards of environmental stewardship and governance for the British Overseas Territory, according to the latest South Georgia Newsletter.
A Brazilian federal court has ordered BHP Billiton and Vale to set aside US$ 491.5 million, with the possibility of billions more, has frozen the mining giants' assets in the country, and ordered it to carry out extensive environmental and social work in the region hit by a dam burst at its joint venture.
In a new twist to the old song, it’s Santa Claus who had “better watch out” on Christmas Eve, as he shares the night sky with a huge asteroid that will make its closest pass to Earth at about the same time the jolly old fellow is making his annual deliveries.