Fish Poachers Push Endangered Porpoises to Brink
China’s lucrative black market for fish parts is threatening the vaquita, the world’s most endangered marine mammal. The porpoises, who live only in the Gulf of California, are getting caught up as bycatch in illegal gill nets and killed. Scientists fear the porpoise could vanish by 2018.
Hawaii bill to restore Waikiki Beach
Despite being one of Hawaii’s most iconic beaches, many visitors don’t know Waikiki Beach is actually an engineered beach that has been filled with imported sand. Waikiki has been facing erosion problems for years, and Hawaii lawmakers are pushing a bill to restore it…again. The state estimates that approximately 300,000 cubic yards of sand have been imported to Waikiki beaches over the past 75 years, often mined from other beaches in the state.
Rethinking Urban Landscapes To Adapt to Rising Sea Levels
From Shanghai and Mumbai to New York and Buenos Aires, even a few feet of sea level rise threatens to flood homes and highways, inundate sewage treatment plants, and contaminate drinking water. Landscape architect Kristina Hill argues that cities need to start planning now for impacts that will happen 50 or 100 years in the future.
Why Sustainability Is No Longer a Choice (Op-Ed)
Our understanding of the global climate, economic system and world has changed dramatically over the past decade. And with it, the roles and responsibilities of businesses have also changed.
California Coastal Current
The waters along the west coast of North America are some of the most biologically productive in the world. Cool water from high latitudes flows southward from the edge of British Columbia to Baja; this is the California Current.
Long-term solution sought to problem of Ocean Beach erosion
Every few years, caravans of yellow trucks move thousands of tons of sand from the north end of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach to eroded areas at the south end. And almost immediately, the silvery tide begins carrying it back to where it came from.
Mona Island
75 kilometers to the west of Puerto Rico, a lesser-known island of the Puerto Rican archipelago rises from the Caribbean. Mona island’s primary inhabitants are the plants and animals, the diversity of which has led Mona to be nicknamed the “Galapagos of the Caribbean.”
Cancún’s mangroves destroyed, but hope grows again
A Mexican court has issued an injunction blocking further work on a real estate project in the Caribbean coast resort of Cancun that activists say has almost killed a 57 hectares mangrove swamp at the site.
Crisis Response: When Trees Stop Storms and Deserts in Asia
A history of deforestation has made Asian nations like Vietnam, China and South Korea especially vulnerable to coastal storms, floods and sandstorms. Yet just as these nations have experienced similar crises, they’re also all pursuing a solution—restoring degraded landscapes.