• photo of oxen and a man with a plow in the tropicsCuba Verde
    Will the long-isolated island’s low-carbon adaptations endure?
    By Bill Weinberg
  • photo of a gold nugget in the palm of a personArc of Desperation
    Venezuela’s decision to open up the Orinoco Belt to mining threatens the Amazon rainforest.
    By Bram Ebus
  • photo of oily mud and waterPachamama’s Blood
    Ecuador’s Sápara people are developing strategies to fend off the dual threats of oil development and climate change.
    By Gleb Raygorodetsky
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Latest News

Long-Lost Congo Notebooks May Shed Light on How Trees React to Climate Change

Records found in abandoned research station contain a treasure trove of tree growth data dating back to 1930s

by The Guardian – September 22, 2017

A cache of decaying notebooks found in a crumbling Congo research station has provided unexpected evidence with which to help solve a crucial puzzle — predicting how vegetation will respond to climate change. The treasure trove of tree growth data dating from…
> Read more

EPA Adds Prison Locations to its Environmental Justice Mapping Tool

EJ activists celebrate move as an advance in the struggle to recognize the environmental rights of prisoners

by Zoe Loftus-Farren – September 21, 2017

As an environmental reporter, it’s not every day that I get to communicate good news — the state of our environment often feels pretty bleak. But today, at least, there is a victory to celebrate: Thanks to the persistence of a small…
> Read more

The Environmental Destruction Wrought by War

Transitioning from terracide to ecolibrium

by Gar Smith – September 20, 2017

Even before war breaks out, the Earth suffers. Minerals, chemicals, and fuels are violently wrested from Earth’s forests, plains, and mountains. Much of this bounty is transformed into aircraft, gunboats, bullets, and bombs that further crater, sear, and poison the land, air,…
> Read more

Safeguarding Mexico’s Sierra Madre Cloud Forest against Logging

Recent trip to region uncovered survival of endemic salamander thought to be extinct

by Roberto Pedraza Ruiz – September 19, 2017

Due to its long evolutionary history, unique micro-climatic conditions, and the extreme luck of having survived millenia human pressure, the Mexican cloud forests represent the best of the American continent’s wild places. These small, oozing green islands lost in the mist of…
> Read more

Beyond Harvey and Irma

The militarization of homeland security and disaster relief in the climate change era

by Michael T. Klare – September 18, 2017

Deployed to the Houston area to assist in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, US military forces hadn’t even completed their assignments when they were hurriedly dispatched to Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands to face Irma, the fiercest hurricane ever recorded…
> Read more

Images from Assateague Island

Ecology and wonder on a barrier island

by Mark Hendricks – September 15, 2017

Assateague Island is a 37-mile-long barrier island located off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia. It stretches to about two miles at its widest and only a quarter mile at its narrowest end. Its very name conjures images of wild horses galloping…
> Read more

more articles

Voices

Mustafa Ali
The former head of the EPA’s environmental justice office talks openly about why he left the position and how – despite the current political climate – he’s hopeful about the future.
> Read more
Ted Lieu
The California Congressman writes about the power of natural places and the need for robust climate action at the federal level.
> Read more

Current Issue

thumbnail of the cover of the Earth Island Journal

Heavy Metal

The debate about how to reduce use of lead ammunition is heating up in Oregon.
By James Yuskavitch

An Unraveling Web

Along the California coast, a race to save marine mammals from a life-threatening toxin.
By Jeremy Miller

De-Junking Paradise

A province of Vanuatu is turning to local, organic food in an effort to stave off diet-related illness.
By Anna Lappé

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