Environment | WPN World People News

On 24 October 2016 in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Nigeria, children pass in front of a flame fed by waste and rubber materials in order to make Kanda, a type of smoked meat, at an abattoir.

On October 27, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement valued at more than $400,000 with Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. for a fleet of diesel trucks that violated California’s Truck and Bus Regulation. The company will spend $180,600 on environmental projects to reduce air pollution at schools in the Los Angeles area, and $75,000 on air quality improvements in the San Joaquin Valley. It will also pay a $154,400 civil penalty and has taken measures to comply with the law.

An EPA enforcement action resulted in the general contractor and the excavation company who worked on construction of a new high school in Somerset, Mass., correcting violations of the EPA permit to discharge stormwater, and taking necessary steps to protect the local storm sewer system and the Taunton River from contamination.

The State of Food Insecurity in Sierra Leone report launched by the Government of Sierra Leone on Oct 27, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows more than half of the population – over 3.5 million people – are food insecure, without access to a sufficient amount of safe and nutritious food. Of these, about 600,000 are severely food insecure, eating significantly less food and less varied and nutritious food, and unable to cope with new shocks such as drought, floods and fluctuating food prices. The number of severely food insecure people has increased by 60 percent since 2010.

A Lowell, Mass., manufacturer of fiber products has come into compliance with hazardous waste laws after the US Environmental Agency found the company was violating federal and state environmental laws.

A federal court ruled in favor of conservation groups in their challenge to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to deny Endangered Species Act protection to two imperiled wildflowers that live only on oil shale formations in Colorado and Utah, on Oct. 25.

Children at the Église Chrétienne Nan Lindy Church where 300 people have sought temporary shelter after Hurricane Matthew.

The decision of the International Whaling Commission not to designate more than a quarter of the Atlantic Ocean as a protected zone for whales is a missed opportunity according to Greenpeace International.

More than 450 women aged 65 and over, on October 25, joined a global wave of legal actions demanding climate justice. The group launched a legal challenge to the Swiss Government’s climate policies, highlighting shortfalls that are putting their lives and future generations at risk.