Environment

April, 2018

• 20 April

  Trump takes first step in aggressive effort to drill for oil in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

  

  The Trump administration has taken the first step towards an aggressive effort to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – one of the country’s most pristine and environmentally sensitive areas.  
• 20 April

  Single-use plastic has reached the world’s deepest ocean trench

  

  A new study has revealed that human activities are affecting the deepest part of the ocean, more than 1,000 kilometers from the mainland.  
• 20 April

  Climate change could alter ocean food chains, leading to far fewer fish in the sea

  

  Climate change is rapidly warming the Earth and altering ecosystems on land and at sea that produce our food. In the oceans, most added heat from climate warming is still near the surface and will take centuries to work down into deeper waters. But as this happens, it will change …
• 20 April

  Why recycling is not the answer for fighting the plastic pollution problem

  

  Marine-based plastic pollution is already one of the world’s major environmental problems and campaigners say it is expanding at a catastrophic rate.  Although it is difficult to measure, there is estimated to be around 150 million metric tonnes of plastic in our oceans. 
• 19 April

  Hurricane Irma turned the Everglades into a tree ‘graveyard,’ NASA lasers reveal

  

  Hurricane Irma turned the vast mangrove forests of the Everglades into a tree graveyard, new NASA images reveal.  
• 19 April

  Sea levels could be rising faster than predicted due to new source of Antarctic ice melting

  

  Sea level rise could be happening at a faster rate than previously thought, as scientists have identified a new source of melting ice in Antarctica.   
• 19 April

  Global warming is transforming the Great Barrier Reef

  

  A new study published online today in Nature shows that corals on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced a catastrophic die-off following the extended marine heatwave of 2016.  
• 18 April

  ‘Ghost net’ found off Cayman

  

  One of the fishermen who made the initial discovery said there were potentially 30 or more sharks trapped in the tangle of weighted netting that spanned 40 feet across and an estimated 40 feet deep. 
• 18 April

  Whale hunting to begin again in Iceland

  

  After a two-year break, whale hunting conducted by Hvalur hf. will resume again this summer. The company has been granted a quota of 161 fin whales to hunt this summer. 
• 17 April

  Hawaii’s tropical fish, under assault from aquarium collectors, win another reprieve in court

  

  Last week, a state court gave the beleaguered fish populations and Hawaii’s fragile coral reefs a reprieve by invalidating 131 active recreational aquarium fish collection permits that together would have allowed approximately a quarter of a million tropical fish to be removed from the coral reefs in a single year. 
• 16 April

  Can the Gulf of Mexico’s largest voral reef survive a massive new port?

  

  Environmentalists in Mexico have fought the recent relocation of a coral reef to make way for bigger ships in the Port of Veracruz. They worry about the ecosystem impacts of the port expansion and the precedent it sets for uprooting corals.  
• 14 April

  2,000 truckload of debris dumped at wetlands near Mumbai

  

  Between January 2012 and January 2018, there have been 652 cases of wetland destruction in the state, most of which are related to create land for infrastructure development or residential purposes.