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This article is about an action plan implemented by Norway that helps preserve biodiversity.

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Environment Live UN Environment Knowledge Repository Global Environment Outlook

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People in Alaska are concerned about the effects mining a cavern between two rivers may have on their local environment.

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On a Thursday in October, dozens of Alaskans piled into a cavernous airplane hangar in the remote village of Iliamna to discuss - yet again - the fate of the proposed Pebble Mine. Seventeen miles to the northwest, underneath snaking rivers and spongy bogs, lies one of the largest undeveloped deposits of copper and gold in North America. Mining companies have been exploring it for decades. But many fear that an open pit mine here, at the headwaters of two of the last great salmon rivers on Earth, will harm fish - and the people who depend on them.

In 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency moved to impose restrictions that would have blocked plans for a large mine, citing the impacts on fish-bearing streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands. But the mine's backers sued, putting the restrictions on hold. Now, Northern Dynasty Minerals, the Canadian company that owns Pebble Partnerships, may get another shot under the Trump administration. Following a meeting between Pebble executives and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt in May, the agency settled the lawsuit and announced plans to abandon the Obama-era restrictions.

EPA officials were in Iliamna to hear what the public thought of the reversal. According to local news reports, a few attendees spoke up in favor of the mine, but many residents of the region - including more than 80 percent of its Native Alaskan population - are strongly against it. "It's not acceptable in any form," says Alannah Hurley, executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. Native Alaskans depend on salmon and other wild foods for both physical and spiritual sustenance, she says. "If the environment is harmed, therefore our people are harmed."

Many commercial fishers in Bristol Bay, which boasts the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, also oppose the mine, along with environmental groups and even some of Alaska's normally pro-resource political figures. "Their problem is one of location, and that's never going to change," says Taryn Kiekow Heimer, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They are just sitting at the headwaters of this incredibly productive ecosystem."

Yet an uncomfortable truth underpins this debate: America - and the world - has a voracious appetite for minerals, including copper and gold. And that appetite is projected to grow. A recent study found that global copper demand could increase by as much as 350 percent by 2050, exhausting current reserves sometime between 2035 and 2045.

Keeping pace will almost certainly require opening new mines, says Thomas Graedel, a retired industrial ecologist at Yale University and an author of the study. He understands why many people take a skeptical view of mining; the industry has a long history of abusing workers and the environment. But he doesn't see an alternative. "We can't imagine a world that we would like that doesn't have active mining," Graedel says.

The question, then, isn't whether to mine. It's where to mine - and how to do it better.

Economic geologists are fond of pointing out that if you can't grow it, you have to mine it. And indeed, mined products are everywhere in modern life - in tin cans, smart phones, and even toothpaste (which contains crushed up minerals like calcite and mica). The USGS estimates that, in a lifetime, the average American will use more than 5,600 pounds of aluminum, almost 20,000 pounds of phosphate rock (mostly as crop fertilizer) and nearly 30,000 pounds of iron ore, to say nothing of all the plastics made from oil that had to be extracted from the ground.

The metals in question at Pebble include gold and molybdenum, but the biggest product would be copper. Today, humans consume more than 20 million metric tons of copper per year, making it one of the most widely used metals. Most copper goes into wiring, plumbing, and infrastructure, including bridges, water treatment plants, and the electrical grid. Copper is also used in building construction, appliances, and electronic equipment, among other applications.

Unless scientists come up with a suitable replacement, demand for copper will grow as the world's population increases and more people attain higher standards of living, Graedel says. "There is very good evidence that affluent people go out and buy stuff, and that stuff takes resources," he says. The more equitably the word develops, the more copper we will need, his study found.

Green technologies, from solar panels to wind turbines, also require a lot of copper. Every electric car contains more than 150 pounds of it. As a result, a recent World Bank report concluded that limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius would increase copper demand by roughly 150 percent.

Recycling could help meet some of this increased demand, but the potential is limited, Graedel says. The problem is that copper often goes into products that last a long time. When they do reach the end of their useful lives, about half of that copper is already reclaimed, but that satisfies less than a fifth of current demand. "Even if we are 100 percent efficient on what comes out of use," Graedel says, "we will never have enough solely from that source to meet demand."

Unfortunately, the troubling environmental legacy of metal mines is also long-lasting. Sediments in Lake Superior hint at pollution from 6,000-year-old Native American copper mines on Isle Royale. In the Sierra Nevada, some fish still contain unsafe levels of the mercury used to extract gold during the California Gold Rush. And across the American West, abandoned mines continue to leach acid and heavy metals from waste rock and tailings - the crushed material left over after the metals have been extracted from ore.

Mining has gotten cleaner in recent decades, says Robert Seal, a geologist with the US Geological Survey. Companies have come up with new ways to process ore and extract metals. They sometimes neutralize rock waste containing sulfide minerals, which are usually the culprit behind acid mine drainage, and they regularly treat wastewater before it flows into the environment. "There have been improvements all across the board," Seal says. But there's still a lot of room for improvement.

Storing tailings as a wet slurry in contained ponds, as Pebble has proposed to do, helps reduce acid drainage. But it's also the most common source of modern mining accidents. In August 2014, in the mountains of British Columbia, a dam burst at the Mount Polley mine, releasing muddy water contaminated with mine waste into rivers and lakes inhabited by Chinook salmon and rainbow trout. And in 2015, a dam failure at an iron ore mine in Brazil flooded entire villages and killed at least 11 people.

The root cause of such disasters is often more political than technical, says Erica Schoenberger, a geographer at Johns Hopkins University. In a 2016 study, Schoenberger analyzed three different mines - including Mount Polley - to understand why some fail while others succeed. "It seemed to me that what was standing between the engineers and safe mining, if not beautiful mining, was the regulatory structure and the corporate structure," she says. In other words, engineers know how to manage tailings safely, but their advice often goes unheeded.

Under the right conditions, though, mines can work well. The McLaughlin gold mine in California, which Schoenberger cites as a model, was bound by the state's stringent laws, but even more by the high stakes of operating near Napa County's wine country. To reduce the chances of an accident, the Homestake mining company built its tailings dam to standards that far exceeded state regulations. It also converted the mine to a nature reserve after it closed in 2002.

Schoenberger says that engineers now have even better options, albeit more expensive ones, for storing tailings safely, like drying and stacking them into stable, covered piles. A post-mortem of the Mount Polley accident concluded that subjecting tailings facility plans to review by outside experts and adopting new storage methods are key to reducing the risk of future failures.

Does that mean that any mine can be safe? Payal Sampat of Earthworks, a nonprofit, says no. Sampat serves on the steering committee of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. IRMA grew from the belief that mining can be done better, and it's developing criteria to certify environmentally and socially responsible mines. But, Sampat says, "any conversation about how mining can be done more responsibly would have to start with the premise that there are some places that are too precious to mine."

She thinks Pebble is one of them.

Better Than Sockeye?

Pebble does have its supporters, including Graedel. The US is currently a net importer of the minerals that would be mined at Pebble, he says. If we choose not to develop it, he says, "then I think that means we are saying that we would like those sorts of mines to be developed somewhere else, probably where the controls would be less stringent than they would be if a mine were developed in the US." Graedel would like to see the mine opened, but with the strongest possible protections in place.

Seal is less certain. Mines are unique, he says, because "you are kind of stuck with building it wherever you find the ore deposit, and they are very rare, globally speaking." But that often brings mines in conflict with other valuable resources, like world-class fisheries, he says. "The question is, can we have both?" At Pebble, Seal says, the answer requires carefully analyzing the environmental impacts of the mine's proposal - and potential alternatives - which won't be possible until Pebble formalizes its plan. "I don't know what the right answer is at this point," Seal says.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting of the Resource Development Council for Alaska last month, Pebble CEO Tom Collier announced preliminary plans for what he said would be a smaller, safer mine. Collier said that the company had made numerous changes in response to concerns, including abandoning the use of cyanide to recover a portion of the gold and building a sturdier tailings dam.

Collier also announced that the mine would scale back dramatically, targeting just a fraction of the deposit. The new plan calls for a 5.4-square-mile footprint, down from an estimated 13 square miles, and requires just one of three proposed tailings facilities, limiting its impact to a single tributary of one of nine major rivers that drain into Bristol Bay. (The company has decided not to pursue dry stacking, because it would increase the mine's footprint, according to a spokesperson.)

But the mine's opponents remain unconvinced. According to the EPA's 2014 assessment, which formed the basis for its restrictions, even a small mine would have significant and irreversible impacts on wetlands, rivers, and fish, says Heimer of the NRDC. And she suspects that the new plan is just a foot in the door-a first step toward exploiting the larger potential of the deposit, which Pebble's backers continue to tout to investors.

Any day now, the EPA will announce whether or not it will lift its restrictions. Pebble will have 30 months to submit an application for a permit and begin seeking regulatory approval-but the fight won't be over. Alaska voters are pushing a ballot initiative that would require the state department of fish and game to grant permits for any project that could affect salmon habitat. And the mine has amassed many high-profile critics over the years. Dozens of jewelers - including Tiffany and Co. - have signed a pledge not to buy gold from Pebble.

Front and center are the voices of Native Alaskans, who - like many indigenous people living on resource-rich land - have the most at stake. Hurley says she understands the need to mine. But there has to be a limit to the sacrifice, she says: "If this place is not worth saving, what is?"

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The World Needs Copper. Does It Need This Controversial Mine?

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On a Thursday in October, dozens of Alaskans piled into a cavernous airplane hangar in the remote village of Iliamna to discuss - yet again - the fate of the proposed Pebble Mine. Seventeen miles to the northwest, underneath snaking rivers and spongy bogs, lies one of the largest undeveloped deposits of copper and gold in North America.

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In this article, it discusses the impact that deforestation for living stock has on the biodiversity of an area.

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A lot has been said about the many links between the food on our plates to climate change. But a new report from the World Wildlife Fund UK (WWF) highlights how the livestock industry also gobbles up a massive amount of land, leading to wide-scale biodiversity loss.

Producing the animal feed for meat- and dairy-heavy Western diets uses up a lot of the planet's precious resources. Simply put, the more animal products we eat, the more feed we need to produce, but growing the crops used for that feed-such as soy and corn-eats up land, the Appetite for Destruction report notes.

"Today, protein-rich soy is such an important feed ingredient that the average European consumes approximately 61kg (134lbs) of soy per year, largely indirectly through the animal products that they eat like chicken, pork, salmon, cheese, milk and eggs," the report from the UK-based conservation group states.

Not only that, these crops are usually produced in some of the planet's most valuable and vulnerable areas such as the Amazon, Cerrado, Congo Basin, Yangtze, Mekong, Himalayas and the Deccan Plateau forests.

"Many of these high-risk regions already suffer significant pressure on land and water resources, are not adequately covered by conservation schemes," the report points out. "The growing demand for livestock products and the associated intensification and agricultural expansion threaten the biodiversity of these areas and the resource and water security of their inhabitants, as well as the stability of our food supply."

In all, meat-based diets can be linked to 60 percent of global biodiversity loss, the WWF found.

"The world is consuming more animal protein than it needs and this is having a devastating effect on wildlife," WWF food policy manager Duncan Williamson explained to the Guardian. "A staggering 60 percent of global biodiversity loss is down to the food we eat. We know a lot of people are aware that a meat-based diet has an impact on water and land, as well as causing greenhouse gas emissions, but few know the biggest issue of all comes from the crop-based feed the animals eat."

On a positive note, the report states it is possible-and essential-to change our food production systems and consumption patterns for the betterment of the planet and its inhabitants.

At the end of the report, the WWF suggests six "Livewell" principles that form the basis of a sustainable diet that's good for your health and the Earth's health: 1. Eat more plants; 2. Eat a variety of foods, 3. Waste less food; 4. Moderate your meat consumption; 5. Buy food that meets a credible certified standard; and 6. Eat fewer foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar.

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WWF: 60% of Global Biodiversity Loss Due to Land Cleared for Meat-Based Diets

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A lot has been said about the many links between the food on our plates to climate change. But a new report from the World Wildlife Fund UK (WWF) highlights how the livestock industry also gobbles up a massive amount of land, leading to wide-scale biodiversity loss.

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This article is about a group of farmers concerned over the health of their soil and working to better it.

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In American farm country, a grass-roots movement is spreading, a movement to keep more roots in the soil. (Not just grass roots, of course; roots of all kinds.) Its goal: Promoting healthy soil that's full of life.

I met three different farmers recently who are part of this movement in one way or another. Each of them took me to a field, dug up some dirt, and showed it off like a kind of hidden treasure.

"You can see how beautiful that soil [is]," said Deb Gangwish, in Shelton, Neb. "I'm not a soil scientist, but I love soil!"

"You can pick it up and it smells like dirt," Bryce Irlbeck told me, as we stood in a field near Manning, Iowa. "You can go on a lot of arms in Iowa and the dirt doesn't smell like dirt anymore."

And in Pleasant Dale, Neb., Del Ficke was practically ecstatic. "Look at this! And the smell! It smells beautiful! It's alive!"

For years, talk of "healthy soil" was mostly limited to organic farmers and others on the fringes of mainstream American agriculture. No more. Articles about soil health fill major farm publications. It's the subject of several recent books. Big food companies are on board, and some of them are discussing a new eco-label for food, alongside "organic" and "fair trade," that would reward farmers for adopting practices the build healthy soil - what many are calling "regenerative agriculture."

It's also provoked lots of debate. Some farmers have made claims of dramatic success that others have called unrealistic. There's no universally accepted measure of soil health, nor a clear definition of regenerative farming. Each of the farmers I met approaches it differently.

For Ficke, it's a spiritual quest. He recalls the moment, on a Sunday morning, when he heard a call from God to farm in a different way, one that felt closer to the native prairie that used to flourish in eastern Nebraska.

"I could feel it in my heart that we had to change. We are running out of time," he says.

The call to change involved a lot of things, but near the top of the list was protecting the soil. Farmers around the world have been mining that soil for centuries.

"It should be on the list of endangered species. Soil is endangered!" Ficke says.

For Ficke, protecting it means, first of all, no more tilling the ground, breaking it up with plows and discs. "Tillage is the most destructive thing in agriculture," he says.

That's not even controversial anymore. Many farmers have adopted "no-till" farming, recognizing its environmental benefits. But Ficke goes way beyond that. After he harvests his corn or soybeans, he plants something else on those fields right away - often a mixture of grasses and legumes like cowpeas. On some of that land, he keeps those "cover crops" growing right on through the next summer, instead of conventional crops like corn. His cattle graze on those fields the way bison once grazed on the prairie.

The roots of these cover crops, decaying in undisturbed soil, enrich the soil. So do manure and urine from his grazing cattle. With time, the soil grows darker, more fertile - chock-full of microbes and fungi.

None of this is a new discovery, exactly. But two things have changed.

Change #1: Ficke now has plenty of company.

"When I started doing this stuff - really doing this stuff - five years ago, you had to go a state away to find people" farming in a similar way, Ficke says. Perhaps the most famous soil health pioneer is a farmer named Gabe Brown, in North Dakota. "Those people are all over now," Ficke says. "You can find someone like that every few miles."

There's Bryce Irlbeck, for instance. He's simply looking for the practical advantages that healthier soil can bring.

"When we put that carbon back in the soil, we can see the effects of reduced fertilizer [use], reduced erosion," he says.

Soil that's full of decaying roots and microbes is like a sponge; it soaks up water and is better able to handle floods and droughts. It's also full of plant nutrients, so Irlbeck won't have to spend as much money on fertilizer.

"I think there is a movement, and I believe that farmers want to be part of that movement," he says. "It's just figuring out how to do it and stay economically viable."

That's the catch. Planting those additional soil-building cover crops costs money up-front, Irlbeck says, and it takes years to see the benefits. This is the main reason why only 5 or 10 percent of farmers in Iowa are really doing it.

In fact, until recently, a lot of his neighbors thought he was a little crazy. Now, they're asking him lots of curious questions.

That's probably because of big change #2. Farmers are now hearing about the virtues of healthy soil from some of the biggest, most powerful names in American agriculture.

These include Monsanto, the seed and chemical company; food giants like General Mills and Walmart; also environmental organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Nature Conservancy. They're all talking about healthy soil as a way the farmers can help the environment.

It's driven in part by concern over global warming. Tilling and draining soil have released enormous amounts of carbon dioxide over the years. Regenerative farming puts some of that carbon back in the ground, slowing global warming.

A coalition of food companies and environmental organizations has set up a new organization, the Soil Health Partnership, which in turn has signed up a hundred participating farmers - including Deb Gangwish, co-owner of PG Farms in Shelton, Nebraska.

"We want to always strive to be better, and I want consumers, or folks who are removed from agriculture, to understand what we are doing, and how much we care, and [that] we're always striving to be more sustainable," Gangwish says.

This business-backed soil health organization, however, is promoting changes that are pretty modest. You could call it soil health lite.

It's carrying out experiments on these participating farms to measure the impact of farming without tillage, or growing cover crops in between regular plantings of corn and soybeans. The goal is to learn how those practices affect a farmer's profitability along with specific measures of soil health.

Del Ficke, the soil health pioneer, has mixed emotions about this partnership. He's in favor of anything that persuades more farmers to reduce tillage or plant cover crops, but he doesn't entirely trust the companies' new-found enthusiasm for soil health.

"Are they feeling it their heart? Is it a marketing deal? What is it?" he says.

There may, in fact, be a marketing angle to soil health. Some food companies have been talking about a new label for food that's grown using methods that improve the soil. On the supermarket shelf, it might take its place beside packages labeled as organic, non-GMO, or Fair Trade. This one might be called "regenerative."

Proponents of such a label say it could encourage farmers to join the movement, paying them to help the soil. But Matthew Dillon, director of agriculture for Clif Bar & Company, doesn't think it's a good idea, at least not yet.

There's a lot of uncertainty about what farming practices really are best for the soil in different regions, he says, so it's too soon to start using such labels. In an interview with the news site Food Navigator, Dillon said that the labels "may be "good for marketers, but they may not necessarily be good for consumers or for farmers if we're not all clear what the terms mean," he says.

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A Grass-Roots Movement For Healthy Soil Spreads Among Farmers

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In American farm country, a grass-roots movement is spreading, a movement to keep more roots in the soil. (Not just grass roots, of course; roots of all kinds.) Its goal: Promoting healthy soil that's full of life. I met three different farmers recently who are part of this movement in one way or another.

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This article contains a debate over a uranium mining site in Virginia and the legal battle over the land.

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The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider overturning a ban on mining at the site of the nation's largest known uranium deposit, heeding calls from the Trump administration and the companies that own the Virginia land.

Virginia Energy Resources Inc. and other companies contend in their appeal that the state ban runs afoul of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act. They say that law puts the subject of nuclear safety entirely in the hands of federal regulators.

A federal appeals court rejected that argument last year, upholding the Virginia ban on a 2-1 vote.

The site, near the North Carolina border in Pittsylvania County, contains an estimated 119 million pounds of uranium. The deposit was discovered in the early 1980s.

Virginia officials urged the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal. They contend that the Atomic Energy Act doesn't regulate conventional uranium mining on private land, leaving states free to do so. Virginia first banned uranium mining in 1982.

The case is Virginia Uranium v. Warren, 16-1275.

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Virginia Uranium Mining Dispute Draws U.S. Supreme Court Review

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The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider overturning a ban on mining at the site of the nation's largest known uranium deposit, heeding calls from the Trump administration and the companies that own the Virginia land. Virginia Energy Resources Inc. and other companies contend in their appeal that the state ban runs afoul of the U.S.

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A company known as Katanga has accused the Congo of stealing mining business from them.

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Congo's state-owned mining company has accused Toronto-listed Katanga Mining Ltd. of draining hundreds of millions of dollars from their joint-venture copper and cobalt mining company.

Katanga, owned by Swiss-based mining giant Glencore PLC, had seen its share price soar over the past year on projections that it will become the world's biggest producer of cobalt, an essential element in batteries for electric cars.

The boom in electric cars, which has led to a tripling of cobalt prices over the past two years, has boosted Glencore into a powerful position as a dominant supplier to the auto industry, despite investor jitters about instability and corruption in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But the fragility of Katanga's position became clear this week. The revelation of the dispute between Glencore and state-owned Gécamines, including the state company's threat to dissolve their joint venture, triggered a 50-per-cent drop in Katanga's shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday.

Its share price recovered slightly on Tuesday, but its conflict with Gécamines continued to escalate as the Congolese company intensified its attack.

In a statement on Tuesday, the state mining company said Glencore and Katanga had created a massive debt of about US$9-billion at the joint venture, forcing the local company to pay interest rates of up to 14 per cent to Glencore, which controls 75 per cent of the joint venture, one of the biggest copper and cobalt projects in Africa's biggest copper-producing country.

Congo, a vast and impoverished country of about 80 million people with huge mineral resources, has become increasingly critical of foreign mining companies in recent years, accusing them of failing to pay their fair share of revenue to the state. Congo's government has introduced a new mining code that raises taxes and royalties.

At the same time, independent studies have found evidence that hundreds of millions of dollars in mining royalties have vanished before reaching the national treasury, with politically connected insiders blamed.

Gécamines has now launched a court action in Congo, seeking to dissolve the joint venture, Kamoto Copper Co. (KCC). The court action, scheduled to be heard next month, could allow Gécamines to win control of the entire site, although it could also simply create a six-month deadline to resolve the issue.

Gécamines alleges that Glencore has "severely harmed" the interests of the state company and the entire country for more than 10 years. By failing to reduce the joint venture's debt, Glencore has restricted the dividends that the local company can pay to the state, Gécamines said.

"It appears that during this period, through a series of intra-group financial and commercial agreements, the majority shareholders group implemented a policy that resulted in draining, to its own benefit, the treasury and wealth of the joint company," the Gécamines statement said.

Because of inflated interest rates charged by Glencore, far higher than what Glencore pays when it borrows, the joint company is obliged to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments to Glencore every year, the statement said.

Katanga, which is 86 per cent owned by Glencore, says it has "several options" to remedy the capital deficiency at the joint venture and prevent its dissolution, perhaps by forgiving a portion of its huge debt.

"KCC has made numerous attempts to engage in constructive negotiations with Gécamines regarding the recapitalization plan," Katanga said in a statement on Sunday.

"However, Gécamines has, instead of meaningfully engaging with the company, unilaterally commenced the (legal) proceeding," the statement said.

It said Katanga will "continue to attempt to engage in discussions with Gécamines and will take all other necessary steps to ensure the continuation of the operations of KCC and protect its rights."

Katanga also faces other challenges, including a regulatory probe. The Ontario Securities Commission has been investigating Katanga over its accounting practices since early last year. An internal review by the company found "material weaknesses" in its financial reporting controls.

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Katanga Mining faces threat from Congo company

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Congo's state-owned mining company has accused Toronto-listed Katanga Mining Ltd. of draining hundreds of millions of dollars from their joint-venture copper and cobalt mining company. Katanga, owned by Swiss-based mining giant Glencore PLC, had seen its share price soar over the past year on projections that it will become the world's biggest producer of cobalt, an essential element in batteries for electric cars.

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India has decided to shut down iron ore mining in Goa.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Supreme Court has quashed all iron ore mining permits in Goa, one of the country's top producing states for the steel making raw material, an environmental group that petitioned the government to halt the mining said on Wednesday.

Mining in the southwestern state of Goa, which produces low-quality iron ore, will stop after March 15 and the government will need to issue new licenses, Claude Alvares, who heads the environmental group Goa Foundation, told Reuters by telephone from outside the court in New Delhi.

"From the 16th of next month, mining companies in the state will be bereft of any leases," said Alvares, who was in the court when the judgment was read out. "They are back to zero. Ownership is back to the government. They will have to auction the leases."

Reuters has not reviewed a copy of the court's ruling, which is yet to be published on its website.

Prashant Bhushan, the lawyer for the Goa Foundation, confirmed the ruling on his verified account on Twitter. "Kudos to Supreme Court for cancelling all 88 iron ore mining leases," he wrote.

Billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources is the biggest iron ore miner in the state.

Court action against illegal mining shut the industry in Goa for more than two years from 2012. Goa had exported about 50 million tonnes of iron ore a year before the ban was imposed. The Supreme Court later limited production in the state to 20 million tonnes a year.

The latest ban would affect not only Vedanta but also several small unlisted companies run by local business families. A Vedanta spokeswoman said "it would be inappropriate to comment without reading the judgment copy".

Vedanta expected to produce around 5.5 million tonnes of iron ore from Goa this fiscal year ending March 31. India's iron ore production totaled 192 million tonnes during the last fiscal year.

Most of Goa's iron ore is exported to China as Indian steel companies do not have the technology to process it.

Chinese iron ore demand has slowed after steel production curbs enacted since the middle of November to curb industrial emissions as part of the country's fight against smog. The curbs are in place until the middle of March.

Mining companies in Goa earlier lobbied to get the export duty on iron ore reduced given a large stockpile of already-mined ore in the state.

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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industrial machinery / equipment (legacy)

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India's top court cancels iron ore mining permits in Goa: petitioners

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Supreme Court has quashed all iron ore mining permits in Goa, one of the country's top producing states for the steel making raw material, an environmental group that petitioned the government to halt the mining said on Wednesday.

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The article cites 26 years of observation as evidence to the impact of soils and their carbon release on global warming.

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Soil leaks up carbon when it warms up but a new research suggests that the soil may release more carbon than previously believed as temperatures increase. This can potentially create a dangerous feedback loop that may aggravate global warming.

Nearly 3 Decades Of Soil Data

While most of the studies on climate change are conducted at atmospheric levels, the findings of a new study are based on 26 years' worth of observations in a Massachusetts hardwood forest, where scientists artificially heated certain sections of the soil and measured the amount of carbon released.

Study researcher Jerry Melillo, from the Marine Biological Laboratory, and colleagues studied three different types of forest plot. In one set of plot, they installed heating cables in the soil and heated them so the soil would be about 10 degrees warmer than the air around it. Heaters were also installed in the second set of plot but these were not turned on and the third set of plot was left untouched.

Carbon From Soil

Analysis revealed that rising temperatures may cause a two-stage cycle characterized by the carbon output increasing for several years and then leveling off, which can be explained by soil microbes adjusting to the warmer condition.

In the study, carbon released from heated soil rose dramatically in the first decade but the effect disappeared. After about seven years, the researchers observed another increase in carbon from the heated plots after readjustment.

"Our results support projections of a long-term, self-reinforcing carbon feedback from mid-latitude forests to the climate system as the world warms," the researchers wrote in their study.

Scientists are concerned that warmer soil may cause a warmer atmosphere that in turn may heat up the ground and perpetuate increase in temperatures.

Planet-Warming Greenhouse Gas

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas largely blamed for climate change. Global efforts to combat climate change are in fact, focused on reducing the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere.

Every year, the world pumps about 10 billion metric tons of this planet-warming gas into the atmosphere mainly through the burning of fossil fuels. The world's soil is believed to contain about 3,500 billion metric tons of carbon.

"If a significant amount of that soil carbon is added to the atmosphere due to microbial activity in warmer soils, that will accelerate the global warming process," Melillo said. "Once this self-reinforcing feedback begins, there is no easy way to turn it off. There is no switch to flip."

See Now: Things You Should Never Search For On Google - You've Been Warned

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Climate Change: Carbon Emissions From Soil May Intensify Global Warming

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Soil leaks up carbon when it warms up but a new research suggests that the soil may release more carbon than previously believed as temperatures increase. This can potentially create a dangerous feedback loop that may aggravate global warming.

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Air conditions in Delhi have gotten so severe that schools were shut down and residents were asked to remain in their homes to avoid health risks.

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A public health emergency has been declared by doctors in Delhi as air quality in the world's most polluted capital city plunged to levels likened to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a single day.

Slow winds and colder temperatures have been blamed for a surge in airborne pollutants beyond what instruments in the city could measure with some recording an Air Quality Index (AQI) maximum of 999.

The Indian Medical Association said the country's capital was suffering a health emergency and called for an upcoming half-marathon to be cancelled to avoid "disastrous health consequences".

Residents were warned to avoid leaving their homes as smog enveloped streets and landmarks on Tuesday, sparking road, rail and airport delays and renewed calls for Indian state and federal governments to act.

The Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said the city was a "gas chamber" as his government met on Tuesday afternoon to consider a response to the crisis. Primary schools, already asked to keep students indoors, will be shut on Wednesday and possibly longer if the poor conditions persist.

Most dangerous to health are concentrations of fine pollutants smaller than 2.5 micro-metres - tiny enough to evade the body's natural filters and permeate the blood-brain barrier.

Tests by Greenpeace have shown these fine pollutants - called PM2.5 - can include carcinogenic chemicals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. Levels of PM2.5 in Delhi on Tuesday reached 710 micrograms per cubic metre, more than 11 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit.

"It has terrible effects on every part of your body," said Dr Arvind Kumar, the chest surgery chairman at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, who compared the 999 AQI level recorded in the RK Puram area to smoking 50 cigarettes in a day. "ICUs are full of pneumonia patients. Lots of my patients are coming with coughs today. They are breathless.

"It can precipitate an acute asthma attack and in the long run it will increase their risk of lung cancer," he said.

Those who work outside - such as the city's fleet of rickshaw pullers - are hardest hit. Vikas Yadav, an immigrant from Bihar state, said he used to welcome the colder months when the threat from disease-carrying mosquitoes subsides.

Now, "my eyes get a burning sensation", he said. "I fell sick last year. I don't know whether it was from the air but I felt breathless and my eyes were itching. Doctors told me not to work early morning during winters."

The smog was unsparing of Delhi's wealthier set and its community of expatriate workers, many of whom gathered on Tuesday morning on the lawns of the Australian high commission for an annual champagne breakfast to celebrate the Melbourne Cup horse race.

"It was like being in Europe in the middle of winter on a misty morning," said one reveller, Elizabeth Pennell, a lawyer for an international fund. "It would have been romantic had the mist not been PM2.5."

Pollution levels around the world

The crowd paired their race-day dresses and suits with pollution masks but Pennell said the foul air failed to dampen the mood. "You tuck up your children inside where the air is purified and for these few hours you risk your health to let your hair down," she said.

"And then you can go back and lock yourself inside your apartment and breathe clean air - unlike most Indians."

Delhi's air quality is extremely poor for most of the year due to road dust, open fires, vehicle exhaust fumes, industrial emissions and the burning of crop residues in neighbouring states.

But conditions worsen in winter months when slow winds and cool temperatures trap pollutants closer to the ground.

As awareness of the problem in Delhi has grown, various methods have been tried to clear the atmosphere including shutting down a local coal-fired power station, traffic rationing and banning firecrackers during Diwali, the annual Hindu festival.

But any lasting solution would need to simultaneously tackle the myriad sources of pollution and involve dozens of state and municipal governments in a country where law enforcement is notoriously patchy.

Though Delhi gets most attention, toxic air afflicts the entire north Indian plain, including parts of Pakistan. A study last year found the holy city of Varanasi had among the worst air in the country.

Airtel, the leading sponsor of the upcoming Delhi half-marathon, urged the city government to ensure the safety of runners, indicating that it may pull out of the event next year.

"Air pollution poses serious health risks and it is important that these concerns are addressed urgently and appropriately by the authorities for Airtel to continue associating with the event next year and beyond," it said in a statement.

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Labourers work on a Delhi construction site. Photograph: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images

Research published in the Lancet last month found about 2.5 million Indians die each year from pollution, the highest number in the world.

Unprecedented levels of pollution this time last year forced schools to shut as authorities scrambled to contain the crisis.

The World Health Organisation in 2014 classed Delhi as the world's most polluted capital, with air quality levels worse than Beijing. A 2015 study showed about half the Indian capital's 4.4 million schoolchildren had compromised lung capacity and would never totally recover.

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Delhi doctors declare pollution emergency as smog chokes city

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A public health emergency has been declared by doctors in Delhi as air quality in the world's most polluted capital city plunged to levels likened to smoking at least 50 cigarettes in a single day.

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In this article, the issue of air pollution in England was discussed along with quotes from people asking for something to be done about the air quality.

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England's chief medical officer is calling on the government to do more to reduce air pollution by introducing stringent new national standards to reduce the threat to human health.

Dame Sally Davies says pollution must be seen as a public health issue and not just an environmental concern. She recommends the government bring in tougher standards to cut air pollution and standardise any road charging introduced to cut nitrogen dioxide pollution from diesel traffic.

In her annual report, Davies said leaving decisions on reducing toxic air to local authorities risked creating confusion for drivers and inconsistent implementation.

She said: "Instead of being seen as a health issue, pollution is often seen primarily as an environmental problem. This needs to change. As a society we need to regain a focus on pollution as a threat to human health."

The government's air quality plan has been condemned as so poor as to be unlawful by the high court. Last month ministers were slammed again by a high court judge for failing to produce adequate plans to reduce toxic air.

Air pollution is thought to cause and contribute to as many as 40,000 deaths a year in the UK already, especially among vulnerable people such as those with existing respiratory problems, and young children, whose health can be permanently damaged by exposure to the pollutants at a young age.

Davies said pollution should be recognised for what it is - a significant cause of non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer and asthma.

"Addressing pollution is therefore disease prevention," she said.

Deprived groups in England, and those with underlying medical conditions, particularly the young and the old, suffered the most from exposure to air pollution, often leaving them with lifelong poor health outcomes.

She welcomed work in London to improve air quality around schools exposed to the highest levels of toxic air in the city.
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Air pollution: England's chief medical officer calls for focus on health threat

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England's chief medical officer is calling on the government to do more to reduce air pollution by introducing stringent new national standards to reduce the threat to human health. Dame Sally Davies says pollution must be seen as a public health issue and not just an environmental concern.

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This story was about the cleanup of arsenic contaminated soil in Hawaii.

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HILO >> The Hawaii State Department of Health issued a final cleanup action report for two vacant lots in Hilo contaminated with arsenic.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald says the report recommends removing the contaminated soil in commercial lots near Waiakea Villas and hauling it to the West Hawaii landfill. The report says cleanup would cost about $312,825.

The soil is contaminated with arsenic from a former plant that used sugarcane bagasse to create canec, a wall- and ceiling-board panel used extensively in Hawaii until the 1970s.

A prospective purchaser was required to pay for the study, while the Department of Health provides oversight.

Department of Health Remediation Project Manager John Peard says the purchaser is interested in a commercial development.

Peard says this is the fourth such study done on the property in the past 15 years.

The properties are owned by the David De Luz Sr. Trust.

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Department of Health calls for removal of tainted soil in Hilo

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HILO >> The Hawaii State Department of Health issued a final cleanup action report for two vacant lots in Hilo contaminated with arsenic. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald says the report recommends removing the contaminated soil in commercial lots near Waiakea Villas and hauling it to the West Hawaii landfill.

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This article is about a grant given to help soils become healthier allowing fields to be fertile for crops.

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GOLDEN, Ill. -- Andrew Reuschel doesn't see enough green in fields this time of year.

"When I drive around, I see a lot of fall tillage, but I don't see a lot of green fields," the Golden farmer said. "I'm not saying cover crops work on every single acre, but they definitely should be thought about for highly erodible land."

Reuschel has 1,000 acres planted this fall to cover crops, primarily cereal rye, annual ryegrass and radishes -- providing valuable benefits in erosion control, weed suppression and boosting soil microbial life.

"The living root of a cover crop is better than anything else. It just keeps that soil moving," he said. "Reducing tillage and having that moving root at all times in the soil is just exactly what millions of organisms in the soil love.

"You're creating the habitat of growth for those organisms. In turn, long-term, (they) should improve the soil and hopefully increase not only water-holding capacity and increase yield, but should increase soil organic matter."

Spreading the word about what Reuschel already understands is the goal of a $9.4 million grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to the Soil Health Institute, the Soil Health Partnership and the Nature Conservancy.

The grant was announced this week. It was matched by General Mills, Midwest Row Crop Collaborative, Monsanto, Nestle Purina PetCare Co., the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, the Wal-Mart Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and individual donors for a total investment of nearly $20 million. The initiative focuses on improving soil health and ultimately supporting positive economic and environmental outcomes for farmers.

A news release said the project will help the industry adopt standardized measurements to evaluate and improve soil health while expanding education and tools for local farmers, agronomists and landowners.

The Soil Health Institute will develop and test soil health measurements. The Soil Health Partnership will implement and evaluate soil health promoting practices on working farms, and the Nature Conservancy will work with nonoperator landowners to encourage use of science-based soil health practices.

"American agriculture has made extraordinary strides in technology and productivity in this century, but the next frontier is in soil health," Nick Goeser, director of the Soil Health Partnership, said in the release. "This grant represents one of the largest investments ever made in soil health, one of the best tools we have to optimize productivity while minimizing environmental impact."

Reuschel sees long-term benefits from investing in soil health, thanks to the grant.

"Any additional funding to promote soil health and water-holding capacity within the soil would definitely be advantageous not only in crops that we grow, but in the water that we drink," he said. "Just getting people aware of cover crops and what they can do, how to implement them and manage them should be a good starting point."

Reuschel got his own start in cover crops and conservation, thanks to his grandpa, Louis Reuschel, and his dad, Jeff Reuschel. Now he's part of the Soil Health Partnership, a National Corn Growers Association initiative to test, measure and advance progressive farm management practices.

"My grandpa played around with cover crops in the '70s. My dad in the '90s, and here we are again, another 20 years later trying cover crops again," he said. "Now we're finally almost starting to understand what we're actually doing."

Working with cover crops requires a "whole system" approach throughout the year.

"It's not just something you can think of later in the season. It's something you should be planting and managing throughout," Reuschel said.

On his farm, for example, cereal rye and radishes are planted into standing corn in August, so they already have quite a bit of growth by harvest. Then in the spring, he no-tills soybeans into the still standing green cereal rye, spraying to kill off the rye either the day before or the day after planting.

"When that cereal rye is still green, the planter goes right through it," he said. "That cereal rye will fall down and create an armor for that soil for any weathering throughout the year. The soybeans just pop right up."

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GOLDEN, Ill. -- Andrew Reuschel doesn't see enough green in fields this time of year. "When I drive around, I see a lot of fall tillage, but I don't see a lot of green fields," the Golden farmer said. "I'm not saying cover crops work on every single acre, but they definitely should be thought about for highly erodible land."

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Discussed in this article is the impact that humans have even on "protected" areas.

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In what's being called a " stunning reality check," a new study published in the journal Science reveals that despite global efforts to safeguard biodiversity by establishing nature reserves, nearly a third of the world's "protected land is under intense human pressure."

"For us to find such a significant amount of human infrastructure in places governments have set aside for safeguarding biodiversity is staggering."
-James Watson, conservation scientist

While more than 90 percent of protected land worldwide has been degraded to some degree due to human activity, 32.8 percent-more than 2.3 million square miles-has been significantly impacted by human activity, according to the report.

"What we found was massive amounts of high-level human infrastructure, for example mining activity, industrial logging activity, industrial agriculture, townships, roads, and energy," lead author James Watson, a conservation scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia, told the Guardian.

"These are the places that nations have said they are setting aside for nature's needs not human needs," he added. "So for us to find such a significant amount of human infrastructure in places governments have set aside for safeguarding biodiversity is staggering."

Watson and fellow researcher Kendall Jones explained the results of their study in a video produced by the University of Queensland:

Although the damage was most common in densely populated parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe, researchers emphasized that it is a global issue. Their findings bolster concerns generated from other recent reports that have shown that human activity-most notably, anthropogenic climate change-is causing "a major biodiversity crisis."

Guy Midgley, a world-renowned expert on biodiversity and professor at South Africa's Stellenbosch University, issued warnings this week about the impact of global warming on the planet's species alongside his latest report, also published in Science.

"There is way too much debate about the issue of climate change and whether or not it is real. What we really need to be doing is debating how we solve this problem," he said in a statement.

"There is way too much debate about the issue of climate change and whether or not it is real. What we really need to be doing is debating how we solve this problem."
-Guy Midgley, biodiversity expert

Referencing the goals of the Paris climate agreement -which aims to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius-Midgley said, "We need to stay as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible."

"Warming by more than 2 degrees," he added, "will take the world into a temperature state that it hasn't seen for several millions of years."

Another biodiversity study published last month found that one in eight of the world's bird speices are threatened by extinction and, as Common Dreams reported, experts warned that "while the report focuses on birds, its conclusions are relevant to biodiversity more generally."

The natural resources report frankly acknowledges this global biodiversity crisis, and asserts that making greater efforts to protect nature reserves is an essential and effective way to address it.

"In an era of massive biodiversity loss, the greatest conservation success story has been the growth of protected land globally. Protected areas are the primary defense against biodiversity loss, but extensive human activity within their boundaries can undermine this," the report reads.

In light of the researchers' findings, the report concludes, "Transparent reporting on human pressure within protected areas is now critical."

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'Reality Check': Report Shows 'Staggering' Failure to Protect Biodiversity as Humans Threaten Third of Nature Reserves

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In what's being called a " stunning reality check," a new study published in the journal Science reveals that despite global efforts to safeguard biodiversity by establishing nature reserves, nearly a third of the world's "protected land is under intense human pressure."

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This article was about the new regulation in place in Germany that prevents cars from certain areas to combat air pollution.

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BERLIN - Germany's highest administrative court ruled on Tuesday that vehicles can be banned from some city streets as part of efforts to improve air quality in urban areas, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the country's automakers and the diesel technology they promoted for decades.

Other European countries have taken measures to reduce the number of diesel-powered cars, but the technology is almost synonymous with Germany, where there are 15 million diesel cars on the streets and where automakers bet their futures on technology they billed as environmentally friendly, even as they rigged software in their cars to pass stringent emissions tests.

Environmental groups welcomed the Federal Administrative Court's ruling, which was centered on efforts to limit emissions in Stuttgart but set a precedent for all cities in Germany. Although they predicted that bans could be in place in some cities by fall, many cities and automakers pointed to language in the ruling that suggested its ultimate effect was yet to be determined.

The ruling called for "proportionality," stipulating that only older models with the highest emissions could be subject to such bans and that other considerations had to be taken into account, but automakers warned that allowing individual cities to set their own rules could result in confusion for drivers.

"Volkswagen has to accept the Federal Administrative Court's decision, but is unable to comprehend it," the company said in a statement, adding that it was "unsettling for millions of motorists" and "completely unclear" how the decision could be implemented.

But Deutsche Umwelthilfe, an environmental and consumer rights organization that set the legal action in motion, cheered the ruling as a clear victory for residents of dozens of German cities who are suffering from respiratory and other health problems caused by air pollution.

"The days of flooding the inner cities with poisonous diesel emissions are over," said Jürgen Resch, managing director of Deutsche Umwelthilfe. "These vehicles have no place in our cities anymore."

Frustrated with the lack of progress in improving air quality in about 70 of the country's most polluted cities, the group brought lawsuits against several local governments, demanding that they uphold the air quality standards set by the European Union. In some instances, cities found that the only way to ensure those standards were met involved banning certain vehicles - mostly older diesel models - from city streets.

Mr. Resch said he expected the first bans to be enacted in the fall in German cities where pollution levels are highest. Those cities include Stuttgart, home to Porsche and Mercedes, as well as Düsseldorf, both of which were directly involved in the case.

"Limited bans for certain diesel cars are within the law," the court said in its ruling, as one way to allow cities to meet the limits on the emissions of nitrogen oxide established by the European Union in 2010.

The court further found that when emissions exceeded the allowed limits, banning all vehicles with diesel motors older than those approved in 2014 and gasoline-burning engines older than those approved in 2001 was the only way for the municipal authorities to ensure air quality.

In 2016, a lower court in Stuttgart ruled in favor of Deutsche Umwelthilfe's argument that the only way to effectively reduce nitrogen oxide levels in urban areas was to keep off the streets those vehicles responsible for the pollution, most of them diesels.

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Activists outside the court in Leipzig, Germany, on Thursday. The case pit environmental campaigners against the powerful auto industry. Credit Sebastian Willnow/DPA, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

But the state of Baden-Württemberg challenged the lower court's ruling, and a court in North Rhine-Westphalia urged a higher court to weigh in, arguing that only the federal government had the right to enforce the European Union standards.

The ruling allowing such bans - already popular among Germany's European neighbors - could open the floodgates, allowing for a raft of new measures in other cities across the country. But resistance to steps that curb drivers' rights in Germany remains deeply rooted. Diesel technology was developed in the country, and it accounts for many of the 800,000 jobs in the German auto industry.

Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a professor who runs an automotive research center at the University of Duisburg-Essen, warned the Germans who drive older diesel cars not to try to sell them, as the ruling was certain to send prices plunging. He criticized the government and auto industry for failing to take the problem of diesel emissions seriously enough when they met in Berlin in August.

"Car and policymakers now need to put their heads together and finally come up with a solution for how we are going to get out of this mess," Mr. Dudenhöffer said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government has been under pressure for years to take a stronger stance against the powerful auto industry, tried to soothe the concerns of diesel owners. "It only pertains to certain cities in which there is more negotiating to be done," the chancellor said after the ruling. "But it certainly does not affect all of Germany and every person in the country who owns a vehicle."

Municipal groups have warned that allowing bans could be fatal for inner cities, where delivery, repair and emergency workers, as well as many residents, rely on diesel-fired vehicles.

Diesel was sold for decades as a cleaner alternative to gas-fired engines on the argument that diesel cars were better for the environment because they burn fuel more efficiently and emit less carbon dioxide.

But in 2015, the United States authorities revealed that Volkswagen had duped consumers by rigging its vehicles to pass emissions tests: Software cut emissions during tests in a controlled environment but turned off under normal driving conditions.

Since then, the scandal has widened, most recently through revelations of a study in which VW forced monkeys to inhale fumes from a Beetle in an effort to prove they were not harmful.

At the meeting in August, the German government ordered all carmakers to fix the problem, and they responded by proposing software that would keep emissions at laboratory levels while driving on the open road. But environmental groups have argued that these have failed to sufficiently reduce pollution.

An alternative would be to retrofit some older vehicles, at a cost of 1,400 to 3,300 euros ($1,725 to $4,060), cutting diesel pollution by as much as 70 percent, according to Germany's auto safety group, ADAC.

Customers are already turning away from diesel technology. The latest figures show a drop of more than 17 percent in the number of diesel-burning cars registered in January compared with December. The figures reflect a trend established in the previous year, and the authorities fear they indicate a threat to the industry.

Like Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, Munich is also considering a ban. They would join European cities including Madrid and Athens, which have said they will ban all diesel vehicles by 2025. Britain and France have also said they want to end domestic sales of new diesel vehicles by 2040.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Stuttgart Ruling Takes Aim at Diesel Industry, Heart of German Car Business. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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German Court Rules Cities Can Ban Vehicles to Tackle Air Pollution

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BERLIN - Germany's highest administrative court ruled on Tuesday that vehicles can be banned from some city streets as part of efforts to improve air quality in urban areas, a decision that could have far-reaching consequences for the country's automakers and the diesel technology they promoted for decades.

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In New South Wales there is a sea urchin that has been wiping out other species on the ocean floor. As a result of this, there is a lack of biodiversity in the area.

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Updated January 24, 2018 10:08:50

There is a hidden desert along the east coast of Australia that has conservationists and the seafood industry concerned.

Sea urchins on the coastal floor are wiping out the seaweed habitat and leaving a barren white rock "moonscape" in their wake.

Rachel Theodore runs a small business on the far south coast of New South Wales in Tomakin, diving and processing sea urchins for the domestic market.

She said the sea urchin population was out of control and getting worse.

"There's only one urchin - the Centro urchin - that is a problem, it's the purpley black one that everyone sees when they go for a dive," she said.

Ms Theodore said they had become a pest, with their numbers so high they were causing an imbalance in the biodiversity of the area.

"The Centro can eat just everything, they can move within about four metres every month - so it's quite fast for a little creature that looks like it can't move," she said.

"But it will just wipe out everything, it can even eat rock when it's got nothing else to eat, and it will survive there for 10 years or more just on nothing."

'Culling sea urchins proven to help'

Ms Theodore believes a profitable sea urchin industry could offer a long-term solution.

She said the state's current regulations were protecting the creatures at the expense of the marine park.

"With the marine parks and the DPI sanctuary zones, the Centro has been allowed to flourish," she said.

"Our biggest struggle is we are on probably the best piece of coast there is - [but] right here at our boat ramp we can't dive.

"On rough weather days we have to ship [sea urchins] up from Victoria just so we can keep supply up.

"That all costs heaps of money, when we've got everything right here at our door step, but the marine park won't let us in."

Abalone diver John Smyth has been filming his dives along the NSW coast, culling sea urchins and monitoring the recovery.

He said in Mallacoota, in eastern Victoria, the abalone industry had proven that culling sea urchins could help.

"It's a win win for the abalone fishery and the sea urchin fishery," he said.

"Because they're not taking all the urchins out, they're reducing the density, the amount of weed means there's more food for both abalone and sea urchins.

"So the urchin roe quality from Mallacoota is very high and marketable, so they've increased their fishing for urchins and also increased the areas where they can catch their abalone from."

'Population normally fluctuates throughout the year'

In response, the NSW Department of Primary Industries said the population of sea urchins fluctuated throughout the year.

And they said the presence of urchin barrens in NSW was due to a reduction in the abundance of key urchin predators.

"While sea urchins are not a significant risk to the marine estate, they are undertaking monitoring work inside and outside of marine park sanctuary zones to further assess impact," a spokesperson said in a statement.

First posted January 24, 2018 09:44:08

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Sea urchins creating hidden deserts on Australia's east coast

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Updated January 24, 2018 10:08:50 There is a hidden desert along the east coast of Australia that has conservationists and the seafood industry concerned. Sea urchins on the coastal floor are wiping out the seaweed habitat and leaving a barren white rock "moonscape" in their wake.

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In this article, the porosity of soil is examined as well as the relevance of different soils to water holding and plants.

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Soil is a critical component of the water cycle. Soil captures rainwater and holds it for use by plants. Soil health is important to improve the water cycle. Below, I will describe soil water-holding properties and why soil health is important for the water cycle.

Soil's physical characteristics determine, in part, how much water the soil can hold. Soil is made up of very fine mineral particles made from the parent material, commonly rock. The rock breaks down into smaller and smaller particles, creating what we know as soil. Water fills the spaces, or pores, between the particles and is held in the pores by the surface of the mineral particles. The amount of water that can be held by the soil depends partially on the size of the mineral particles. If you poured water over large rocks, not much water would be held. The rocks are so large, and the surface area of the soil "particles" is so small relative to the size of the rocks, that the large pores cannot hold the water.

Water is held within the pore spaces and on the surface of the particles through two forces. One of the forces is the attractive force between water molecules. The other force is the attractive force between the mineral particle and the water. Smaller mineral particles have greater surface area, smaller pores and stronger force to hold the water. The larger the individual pores, the lower the energy of attraction that holds the water within the pore. As the pores become smaller, the attractive forces between the soil mineral particles and the water increase, holding the water in the pore. Large soil pores require more energy to hold water within the pore; instead, the water drains out of the soil quickly. More water can be held in smaller pores. For this reason, clay soils, with very small particles and small pores, hold more water than sandy soils.

The mineral structure of the soil also determines how much water is available to plants. As the mineral particles of soil decrease in size, the pore size becomes very small, increasing how tightly water is bound within the pores. However, while there may be more water in the soil, it is no longer available to plants. The water is held so tightly in the pore spaces between the soil particles that plant roots are not able to remove it. Even though there is water in the soil, plants will wilt because of lack of water. The "plant-available water" is an important characteristic of soils that indicates how much water can be stored in the soil and how much water is available for the plant roots to take up. For a sandy soil, the large pores in the soil matrix do not hold water easily, limiting the amount of water that can be stored within the soil, but making the water that is there readily available to plants. In contrast, a clay soil, with very small pores, can hold more water than sandy soils but the water is not readily available to plants as it is bound tightly within the soil matrix.

Soil health is critical for determining both the amount of water that can be stored in the soil, and the amount of stored water that is available to plants. Healthy soil has good soil structure. The soil structure depends partially on the mineral elements of the soil, but also on the other components of soil-especially the biological components. The plant roots, soil microbes (bacteria and fungi), and decaying vegetation make up an important part of the soil and help give the soil good structure. A soil with good structure will form stable aggregates that allow easy infiltration of rainwater. The soil aggregates will hold water, yet release the water for greater availability for plants. While tillage initially increases the pore space in the soil, it destroys the soil structure by breaking apart soil aggregates, disrupting plant root and fungal hyphae networks, and reducing organic matter. Tilled soils eventually become more compacted because of this loss in soil structure. In contrast, no-till management preserves the plant and fungal networks, increases the organic matter in the soil, and creates soils with stable aggregates. Organic matter readily absorbs water and holds it until needed by plant roots. More soil organic matter increases the ability of the soil to absorb rain water, rather than having it run off. As the organic matter in the soil increases, the plant-available water also increases. It has been estimated that for every 1% increase in soil organic matter, the plant-available water in the soil increases by 25,000 gallons per acre. During the rapid growing phase, corn in southeast Kansas uses about ¼" of water per day. Every 4 days, a corn crop needs an additional 1" of soil water. Soils with greater amounts of organic matter increase both the amount of water held in the soil and the water available to that growing corn crop.

We cannot change the mineral composition of our soils, but we can improve the soil biological component through better management practices. Reducing tillage operations will improve soil health by preserving root and fungal networks and increasing the organic matter, which in turn contribute to better aggregate stability of the soil. Planting cover crops can also increase the organic matter in the soil. By improving the soil health, we can improve the resiliency of our soils-increasing the amount of water stored in the soil, reducing runoff and increasing the water available for crop production.

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Gretchen F. Sassenrath,  K-State Research and Extension

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Soil health is important for the water cycle

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Soil is a critical component of the water cycle. Soil captures rainwater and holds it for use by plants. Soil health is important to improve the water cycle. Below, I will describe soil water-holding properties and why soil health is important for the water cycle.

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This article discusses the new initiative in Egypt to decrease air pollution, of which is consisted of 50% human causes.

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This article released by the UN focuses on India's dedication to reducing plastic pollution around their most famous landmark, the Taj Mahal.

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Agra is synonymous with the beauty of the Taj Mahal and plays an important role in India's history.

Among commitments made include: making areas around the Taj Mahal up to a limit of 500 metres around the monument litter free.

Further pledges to make the peripheries of 100 historic monuments in India free from plastic pollution.

India most awe-inspiring landmark, the Taj Mahal, along with 100 other monuments is set to go litter-free after an unprecedented pledge by India's leadership to protect the country's historical landmarks from plastic pollution. India's Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change; Mr. Mahesh Sharma , led participants in a declaration and long-term commitment to beat plastic pollution in the city of Agra and beyond.

"With our pledge today, India is sending a message today to the world that we can beat plastic pollution. We are committed to making the peripheries of 100 historic monuments in India litter free," said Mr. Sharma.

Some of the commitments include: making areas around the Taj Mahal up to a limit of 500 metres around the monument litter free, segregating plastic waste generated near the monument for recycling, encouraging 'Beat Plastic Pollution' tourism and launching mass consumer awareness campaigns about the negative impacts of single-use plastics thereby changing consumption patterns in the city.

"The Taj Mahal is a globally-recognised symbol of the beauty of India, so it's all the more important that Agra sends a message around the world that enough is enough when it comes to the ugliness of plastic pollution!" said Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment. "Taking action is about keeping the beauty of our planet intact."

Celebrity Dia Mirza also commended the declaration, "I'm extremely proud and honoured to be here, not just as a UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador but as a citizen of this country. The Taj Mahal is a symbol of love and with this declaration, we want to send out a message to the world about the love we need to give back to our earth by joining the movement to beat plastic pollution and reducing our consumption of single use plastic."

The Taj Mahal is a centuries-old mausoleum standing on the bank of Agra's Yamuna river. Its white-marble façade is the most recognizable landmark in India, and people travel from around the world to witness its beauty. Making a commitment to protect the historical heritage from plastic pollution, India's leadership pledged to take drastic action for change.

The celebrations around World Environment Day will be broadcasted on social media: @UNEnvironment / www.facebook.com/unenvironment.

For news, stories and events around World Environment Day and Plastic Pollution, visit: World Environment Day Website

UN Environment is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. UN Environment works with governments, the private sector, civil society and with other UN entities and international organizations across the world.

World Environment Day is the single largest celebration of our environment each year. Since it began in 1974, it has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated across the globe. For more information, visit World Environment Day website

Keith Weller, Head of News and Media, UN Environment. keith.weller[at]un.org

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Taj Mahal takes aim at Plastic Pollution

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Agra is synonymous with the beauty of the Taj Mahal and plays an important role in India's history. Among commitments made include: making areas around the Taj Mahal up to a limit of 500 metres around the monument litter free. Further pledges to make the peripheries of 100 historic monuments in India free from plastic pollution.

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This article discusses the concern at the carbon levels in the soil in the United States.

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When it comes to mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere is the prime target for improving the health of our planet. One of the best ways to do that is thought to be locking more of that carbon into the soil that grows our food.

The scientific community has been actively debating whether organic farming methods can provide a promising solution. A 2010 paper published in the journal Ambio found that research about increased carbon sequestration due to organic farming methods was inconclusive, while a 2012 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found increased carbon sequestration in organic farm soils-though a 2013 letter in the PNAS disputed those findings, arguing that there were no carbon sequestration benefits related to organic farming.

A new study from Northeastern University and nonprofit research organization The Organic Center (TOC), though, has reached a different conclusion: Soils from organic farms had 26 percent more potential for long-term carbon storage than soils from conventional farms, along with 13 percent more soil organic matter (SOM).

For the study, which Civil Eats got early access to review, chemists Elham Ghabbour and Geoffrey Davies began by analyzing soil samples from over 700 conventional farms in 48 states. They made the alarming discovery that these samples contained little to no humic substances. Humic substances are one portion of soil organic matter, which is made up of decomposing plant and animal matter. Comprised of humin, humic acid, and fulvic acid, humic substances are a major component of healthy, fertile soil, giving it structure and water-holding ability, among other things. They're built up slowly, over the course of many years, by living materials such as manure that are added to soil.

"They're important because they're one of the biggest places carbon can get stored," said TOC's Director of Science Programs, Jessica Shade, who is a co-author on the study. And storing carbon in soil provides what Shade calls a whole suite of benefits that are linked to soil health, including supporting beneficial organisms like worms; reducing erosion and compaction; and providing aeration, essential plant nutrients, and water retention.

After some consideration, Ghabbour and Davies hypothesized that the dearth of humic substances was due to the high-input practices inherent to conventional farming, such as tilling and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They worked with TOC to contact certified organic farmers and enlist them as "citizen scientists" in gathering soil samples from their own operations; in all, 659 organic soil samples were collected from 39 states.

"Because organic farms are regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and use certain practices " such as crop rotation, letting fields lie fallow, fertilizing with compost, and maintaining a buffer between organic and conventional crops, as well as adhering to a three-year waiting period before qualifying for certification, "this was a great control group for testing this hypothesis," said Shade.

Ghabbour and Davies devised a method for testing not just the overall amount of carbon in the samples-other researchers have already done this, though on a much smaller scale than this nationwide effort-but of those humic substances specifically. Since these can remain in the soil for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, they provide highly stable pools of carbon to support living and growing organisms.

"Soil is the biggest sink of carbon, bigger than the atmosphere and the oceans," said Davies. And yet so far, "there have been no soil labs in the U.S. doing the kind of testing we've done-it wasn't easy to do it on a big scale. But if they really want to know what the quality of soil is, they'll want to know how much carbon it's able to hold." He and Ghabbour hope their testing methods, along with the importance of the information they've yielded, "will transform the industry," he says.

"We already know that [conventional practices] like using [synthetic] fertilizers contribute to climate change," said Davies-they deplete soil of carbon, which is then released into the atmosphere. But he and his team at Northeastern hope their new study might actually provide a roadmap to mitigating it.

"No one has ever compared this many organic and conventional soil samples before, or looked at these subsets of total organic matter," said Michel Cavigelli, a soil scientist at the USDA who was not involved with the study but did review an embargoed copy of the full findings. Though he thinks there may be some criticism of the researchers' "less rigorous" sampling methods, he said the large geographic coverage of samples makes up for that. Overall, he said, the study was a positive "first step that shows us [where] we need to look in more detail in more controlled studies, and this gives us the impetus to do that."

As for how long it might take to see results on farms that undergo a transition to organic practices, Shade offered a reserved response. "To build up humic substances that will impact climate change is going to take decades," she said. "But the side benefit is that as people start using the [organic] techniques that will sequester carbon, they'll also be building healthier soil. And those benefits are exciting and tangible."

Ghabbour and Davies' full study will be published next month in the journal Advances in Agronomy; meanwhile, the Northeastern researchers are contemplating the next leg of their soil research journey.

"What I'd like to do next is to see if the humic substances in organic soils are the same as in conventional soils," said Davies. If they differ, he says, that will be another indication that with conventional farming practices such as fertilizer use, "we're going against nature."
[Editor's note: This post has been updated to clarify the scientific findings about farm-soil carbon sequestration.]

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New Study Shows Organic Farming Traps Carbon in Soil to Combat Climate Change | Civil Eats

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When it comes to mitigating the worst impacts of climate change, keeping excess carbon out of the atmosphere is the prime target for improving the health of our planet. One of the best ways to do that is thought to be locking more of that carbon into the soil that grows our food.

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In this article, Maryland is suing the EPA as the majority of the pollution is coming from out of state.

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Maryland is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding it address air pollution that blows in from upwind states.

The action against President Donald Trump 's administration would press the EPA to apply stricter pollution controls to dozens of power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, something state officials argue is required to uphold the Clean Air Act.

The plants contribute much of the smog that fouls Maryland's air on hot summer days.

"Maryland has made significant progress in improving our air quality in recent years, and that progress is in jeopardy due to a lack of action by the EPA that dates back to the previous administration," Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement announcing the lawsuit Wednesday morning.

Attorney General Brian Frosh said his office filed the complaint Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

"The law requires EPA to take action against the states and the power plants," he said. "I think we win this one."

The Maryland Department of the Environment estimates that 70 percent of the ozone pollution that often makes the Baltimore and Washington regions' air unhealthy to breathe blows in from outside the state, according to MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles. The lawsuit seeks to require 36 generating units at 19 plants in upwind states to install the same scrubbers and other air-cleaning technology that Maryland requires plants within its borders to install.

Ozone is a form of oxygen that is found naturally in upper levels of the atmosphere but acts as a pollutant when it forms close to the ground. It is created when industrial and vehicle emissions interact with compounds in the air in summer heat.

Such pollution can require "Code Orange" air-quality alerts - such as one that occurred across the Baltimore region Monday, and more than a dozen times this summer. The warning indicates pollution that can make it hard for children, the elderly and people with respiratory and heart conditions to breathe.

In July, state officials had warned the EPA that they planned to sue over the issue. The Clean Air Act requires that 60 days' notice be given ahead of citizen lawsuits.

Maryland's efforts to challenge the EPA on the matter go back nearly a year. Grumbles petitioned EPA to enforce what is known as the "good neighbor" provision of the air pollution law in November 2016. After the agency gave itself a six-month extension to respond to that petition, state officials argue, the federal agency was required to act by July 15 but did not, prompting the lawsuit.

Frosh said the "good neighbor" provision has been used successfully in court in the past and said he is confident the state will prevail in the case. While he acknowledged that the original petition dates to President Barack Obama's administration, he said he worries that "the EPA has changed its mission since a year ago."

EPA officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation praised the lawsuit, and said it and partner groups are planning to file a similar action of their own in the coming weeks.

"We applaud and support Maryland in this effort to force EPA to act against out-of-state power plants whose emissions worsen Marylanders' health problems, and have a negative impact on Maryland waters," Jon Mueller, the foundation's vice president for litigation, said in a statement.

The lawsuit is one of many Frosh, a Democrat, has filed, joined or threatened in recent months to challenge the Republican Trump administration. Others have focused on concerns about chemical accidents, pesticide regulation, vehicle emissions, offshore drilling and energy efficiency.

It is a second example of Hogan, a Republican, challenging Trump in court. Earlier this month, he directed Frosh to sue the Federal Aviation Administration over new air traffic control patterns that have stirred complaints of unbearable noise from residents around Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
sdance@baltsun.com twitter.com/ssdance

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Maryland sues EPA over interstate air pollution

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Maryland is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding it address air pollution that blows in from upwind states. The action against President Donald Trump 's administration would press the EPA to apply stricter pollution controls to dozens of power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, something state officials argue is required to uphold the Clean Air Act.