In October, the news media trumpeted the results of a massive study in the UK that was intended to measure the environmental impact of growing genetically modified (GM) crop plants. The scientists mon...

Ethical Traveler Why travelers matter Ten years ago, I set out to discover the actual size of the world. My strategy was simple: I’d circle the Earth without resorting to the use of airplanes. D...

Let’s have another cup of coffee In the “Just Java” piece (Winter 2004), submitted by Co-op America, it was announced that Procter & Gamble has now begun to offer a Fair Trade coffee...

She is pure light descending from the sky; a single snowy egret swoops softly down, taking pause in a shallow pool, her body half hidden by the khaki grass rising from the water. Her eyes scan the fla...

AFRICA South Africans have started illegally breeding big cats to be shot by big-game “hunters” in what locals are calling “canned hunts.” In December, Limpopo game wardens con...

Only when I hear the deafening roar of the chainsaws nearby do I realize the dangers all around me. I am climbing a 180-foot-high old-growth redwood tree nicknamed “Allah” in northern Cali...

RIP, Keiko

No matter how prestigious the university or gifted the professors, some of the most important lessons a university student learns take place outside the lecture hall. As a student in the legal studies...

At Lang Son, a northern Vietnamese town on the Chinese border, I watched as hundreds of Vietnamese carried baskets of monkeys, pangolins, snakes, and a variety of exotic birds in rattan cages. On the ...

Tangled in the food web

Sustainable World Coalition Ecological Avoidance Syndrome (EAS) We have the blessing and the curse to be living in a time in which scientists have repeatedly reported on the imminent destruction—...

As I set out on my hike, I knew that by the end of it I would be breaking the law. Three easy miles and two steep ones brought me to the edge of Headwaters Forest, a 3,000-acre tract of ancient redwoo...

UniversitÁrea Protegida UniversitÁrea Protegida (UÁP), a project of Earth Island since August 2003, supports Nicaraguan university students who are doing thesis research, conservation work, and env...

Americans could learn a lot about recycling from the descendants of the Vikings

Boreal Footprint Project 2003 marks the third year that the Boreal Footprint Project (BFP) has been working to enhance public understanding of the biological and cultural values of the worldwide borea...

We go to the sea hoping to see birds swooping and diving, to watch them carve the wind, to turn and twist, skimming the sea as they search for food. Their dark images darting against the setting sun g...

Members of Earth Island gathered in Boston November 20 to hear Dr. Charles Chester talk about biodiversity. The event was held at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fl...