Environment

• Wednesday, October 21st 2009 - 10:32 UTC

  FAO provides satellite high-resolution data to combat deforestation

  

  The UN Food and Agriculture organization, FAO, and other partners have made available a worldwide, free and ready-to-use high-resolution satellite data with the purpose of monitoring forests and help reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

• Thursday, October 15th 2009 - 12:08 UTC

  Arctic ocean an “open sea” free of ice within a decade

  

  The Arctic Ocean will be an “open sea” almost entirely free from ice within a decade, newly-released data has indicated. Ice cover during the summer months will have entirely disappeared within 20 years, but most of the decrease will happen before 2020, leaving the Arctic Ocean clear for marine transport.

• Thursday, October 15th 2009 - 07:43 UTC

  “Alternative Nobel” honors for climate-change awareness

  

  Environmentalist David Suzuki has received a prestigious award known as the “alternative Nobel” for his work to raise awareness about climate change. Suzuki, 73, received the Right Livelihood Award, along with three other activists.

• Wednesday, October 14th 2009 - 06:15 UTC

  China begins 26th Antarctica season with a team of 251 scientists

  

  Chinese scientists have set off from Shanghai for their 26th research mission to the Antarctic. The “Snow Dragon”, China's main research ship in the polar region, has gone through a series of maintenance and technical readjustments, according to Global Times.

• Tuesday, October 13th 2009 - 04:06 UTC

  Freshwater ecosystems the most threatened

  

  Mismanagement and growing needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse, making freshwater species the most threatened on Earth with extinction rates 4 to 6 times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins, say scientists at the Diversitas 2nd Open Science Conference, in Cape Town, South Africa.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2009 - 10:10 UTC

  Peru’s Machu Picchu among list of world cultural sites threatened

  

  Peru's Machu Picchu ancient ruins, Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona and a New Orleans elementary school are among the cultural heritage sites threatened by neglect or overdevelopment, a preservationist group said.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2009 - 09:46 UTC

  NASA Operation Ice Bridge takes off from Punta Arenas

  

  Starting next Monday and operating from Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile NASA will fly its largest aircraft, --a DC-8, a 157-foot-long airborne laboratory-- to study changes in Antarctica’s sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers as part of its Operation Ice Bridge.

• Wednesday, October 7th 2009 - 09:44 UTC

  UV alert in Punta Arenas as ozone-hole advances to the continent

  

  Magallanes University Ozone Monitoring Laboratory has detected for the second time this year a considerable advance of the Antarctic Ozone Hole over this region in the extreme south of Chile.

• Wednesday, September 30th 2009 - 13:28 UTC

  Chile and Czech Republic work to restore Torres del Paine Park

  

  Four years after a negligent Czech citizen, Jiri Smitak, accidentally started a huge fire in the world famous Torres Del Paine national park in far southern Chile, part of the destroyed area is being replanted in native forest trees.

• Saturday, September 26th 2009 - 02:27 UTC

  Iceland planning to export 1.500 tons of whale meat to Japan

  

  The company behind Iceland's fin whaling industry is planning a huge export of whale meat to Japan. This summer, Hvalur hf caught 125 fins - a huge expansion on previous years.