Environment | WPN World People News

A school of Moorish Idols cruise over the coral reef, Ha’apai, Tonga.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, on June 7th, ordered the Bureau of Land Management to evaluate removing protections for the imperiled sage grouse across tens of millions of acres of public land across the American West in order to benefit the oil, gas and coal industries.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, on June 7th, announced a settlement with the SoCo Group, Inc., to resolve federal claims stemming from its 2016 oil spill in San Diego, California. SoCo, a petroleum marketing and distribution company based in Carlsbad, Calif., has agreed to pay a civil penalty of almost $59,400.

A dozen health, labor and civil rights organizations represented by Earthjustice filed an administrative appeal to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Monday, urging the federal government to ban chlorpyrifos, a widely used agricultural pesticide that has been linked to reduced IQ, loss of working memory and attention deficit disorder in children.

On May 31th, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed a Secretarial Order that threatens to open sensitive and irreplaceable public lands in Alaska’s Arctic for oil and gas development.

The world’s most endangered marine mammal, the vaquita, remains under threat, despite the extension of a temporary ban on gillnets in the Upper Gulf of California, announced by the Government of Mexico, on May 31. WWF believes the current ban will not be enough to protect the species and its unique habitat.

Greenpeace Germany activists took to the water on June 1th in protest against the world’s worsening marine plastic pollution crisis and called on the G20 countries to take concrete steps to adopt solutions and reduce the use of plastics.

Ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life below water), IUCN calls for urgent action on climate change and marine plastic pollution to conserve the ocean and help ensure global food security, coastal protection and sustainable livelihoods.

Denouncing Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris Climate Agreement, Greenpeace International said the decision would cost the US its global leadership position and its share of the economic benefits of the clean energy transition.