Environment | WPN World People News

“The roadless rule will help small businesses like ours,” said Hunter McIntosh of The Boat Company, which operates a small tour business in the region. “The natural values of intact watersheds are essential for the visitor industry in Southeast Alaska. Very few folks will pay to go see clearcuts and decaying logging roads. There are thousands of jobs in Southeast Alaska in recreation and tourism. And there are thousands more in the seafood industry, which depends critically on salmon spawning streams in the old growth forests of the Tongass.”

The Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) has settled with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over federal asbestos violations at a building demolition site near Priest River in northern Idaho’s Panhandle. According to the EPA, ITD failed to inspect a former commercial building located in Priest River, Idaho for possible asbestos contamination prior to its demolition and failed to notify EPA of its intent to demolish the building. The settlement includes a $51,986 penalty.

26 climbers have blocked Shell's Arctic icebreaking vessel, the MSV Fennica, as it attempted to leave Portland, Oregon. The climbers are currently preventing the ship from passing underneath the bridge on its way to meet Shell’s drilling fleet. The climbers have enough supplies to last for several days.

A Greenpeace activist who was severely injured by the Spanish navy on November 15th, 2014, during a peaceful protest at sea near the Canary Islands is being investigated under the piracy chapter of Spain's criminal code. She faced questioning Tuesday by the National Court concerning this investigation, and her complaint concerning the Navy’s gross negligence.

A new project in Egypt will improve sanitation services for more than 800,000 poor Egyptians in the Nile Delta where there is need to increase access to water, waste disposal, and health services. The US$550 million program approved by the World Bank’s Board of Directors Tuesday focuses on enhancing access to sanitation services for the rural poor and addressing the pollution of the Nile from untreated sewage.

Three children play with a rusted wheelbarrow in the town of Singati, near the town of Charikot in Dolakha District, Nepal, epicentre of the 12 May earthquake.

Two Medicine River from the Hall Creek trail.

Twenty-one Greenpeace activists from Italy, Spain and Greece Monday spread a 600 square meter arrow banner reading ‘Oil is fueling Greek debt’, pointing at a Greek oil-fired power plant under construction on the island of Rhodes, to reveal one of the most unacknowledged causes of the Greek crisis; the country’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Once a major contributor to Syria’s domestic economy and external trade, the livestock sector is gravely affected by the conflict.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced agreements with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and port terminal operators that will cut harmful air pollution from the Port of New York and New Jersey. Under the agreements, the Port Authority, APM Terminals North America, Maher Terminals and Port Newark Container Terminals will reduce truck idling at the port of Newark and take other actions to reduce harmful air pollution from diesel exhaust.