Environment | WPN World People News

A valuable crop.

Landscape of mixed deciduous forest in Huai Kha Khaeng Sanctuary in West Thailand.

Southeast Asia's Lower Mekong region is set to lose a third of its natural forests in the next two decades, according to a report by the Worldwide Fund for Nature. Forestry experts blame the current pace of deforestation on governments’ undervaluing forestry resources.

International safety experts last week concluded a two-week International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to review the regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety in Poland.

Cyclists in downtown Vancouver.

Gray fox suffering from rodenticide poisoning.

Russian regional NGO Baikal Environmental Wave, currently monitoring pollution from a pulp mill on the world's deepest lake, is among groups to receive an order that they register as "foreign agents"

The Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) once formed numerous, immense spawning groups. However, heavy fishing has reduced these spawning groups and overall population numbers to critically low values.

Governments meeting to discuss responses to global crime waves are urging countries to impose strict penalties for the trafficking wildlife products like elephant ivory and rhino horn. Members of the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Friday passed a resolution encouraging UN member states "to make illicit trafficking in wild fauna and flora a serious crime" and to ensure organized criminal groups are prosecuted.

The elephants of Central Africa are dying.

A recent study shows forest elephant populations in the Congo Basin fell by almost two-thirds - or 62% - over the past decade as a result of extensive ivory poaching.