Environment | WPN World People News

The World Bank Group is strengthening its partnership with China in support of African development through two major initiatives launched during the second “Investing in Africa Forum (IAF)”, a two-day international forum aimed at boosting investment across Sub-Saharan Africa. The Forum was held in Guangzhou, China, a region home to a large African business community.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded $576,443 to the New Mexico Environmental Department to support the state’s air pollution reduction program. The grant will support attainment and maintenance of National Ambient Air Quality Standards, reduction of toxics emissions and implementation of air enforcement initiatives.

Air pollution has emerged as the deadliest form of pollution and the fourth leading risk factor for premature deaths worldwide. Those deaths cost the global economy about US$ 225 billion in lost labor income in 2013, a new study finds, pointing toward the economic burden of air pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on 7th September announced a settlement valued at more than $600,000 with Mid Pac Petroleum, LLC, resolving federal Clean Air Act violations at the company’s Kawaihae facility on the Island of Hawaii.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is adding 10 and proposing to add eight hazardous waste sites to the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL). These sites have contamination from a variety of sources, including manufacturing, mining, battery recycling and dry cleaning.

A coalition of conservation groups has objected to a mining company’s request for a state water right permit for the proposed Rock Creek Mine. If finalized, the permit would allow the mine to drain water from pristine streams in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and adjacent Kootenai National Forest—in some places making streams run dry.

Limiting illegal trade in threatened species, promoting nature-based solutions to climate change and accounting for biodiversity conservation in the development of renewables are among the first global conservation priorities set today at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawaiʻi.

Citing potential threats to water supplies and endangered wildlife, a U.S. district judge overturned a federal plan to open more than 1 million acres of public land and mineral estate in central California to drilling and fracking, on September 6th. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres ForestWatch, represented by Earthjustice.

The Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – has been listed as Critically Endangered due to illegal hunting, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ released on 4th September at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawaiʻi. Four out of six great ape species are now Critically Endangered – only one step away from going extinct – with the remaining two also under considerable threat of extinction.

@WWF/Tom Arnbom