Greenpeace ship sets sail on Thursday to study an ecosystem beneath the Atlantic Ocean thought to hold clues to the origins of life to press its case for a ban on deep-sea mining, as talks in Jamaica seek to agree on rules of deep-sea mineral exploitation.
Five Japanese whaling vessels have set sail for the country's first commercial hunt in decades, in defiance of international criticism. The whaling ships have a permit to catch 227 minkes, Bryde's and sei whales this year in Japanese waters.
Thousands of endangered sharks are killed each year in the North Atlantic due to a lack of protection against overfishing in international waters, Greenpeace said on Thursday .
International pressure is growing for the Russian government to release nearly 100 juvenile whales which have been kept in small pens in the far east for seven months. French marine scientist Jean-Michel Cousteau and other experts are meeting government officials in Moscow. They plan to visit the so-called whale jail near Nakhodka on Saturday.
A group of international non-governmental organizations on Tuesday demanded that Brazilian miner Vale SA be excluded from the United Nations' corporate responsibility pact, after a mining dam burst that killed an estimated 300 people.
Marine conservationists Sea Shepherd are claiming Japan's decision to abandon whaling around Antarctica as a victory, though their battle will go on with the Asian nation moving to resume hunting elsewhere. On Boxing Day, Japan announced it was leaving the International Whaling Commission so it could resume commercial hunting of the marine mammals in their territorial waters.
A major group of indigenous people living in Argentine Patagonia are taking some of the world's biggest oil and gas multinationals to court for environmental contamination, Greenpeace said this week. The Mapuche are suing American giant Exxon, French company Total and the Argentina-based Pan American Energy, which is part-owned by BP.
The destruction of Brazil's Amazon rainforest reached its highest level in a decade this year, government data released on Friday showed, driven by illegal logging and the encroachment of agriculture in the jungle.
Brazilian environmental agency Ibama this week rejected French oil company Total SA’s application for an environmental license to drill in the ecologically sensitive Foz do Amazonas basin. It is the fourth time that Ibama has rejected the application and requested additional information.
The public prosecutor’s office in the northern state of Amapá recommended on Wednesday that Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama deny French major Total a license to drill for oil near the mouth of the Amazon.