Scientists mapping the effects of deforestation in the Amazon are increasingly concerned that we are reaching a tipping point – when the forest will start to die back of its own accord and rain, currently generated by the Amazon forests, will stop falling, not just in neighbouring countries but as far afield as the United States and South Africa.
The ongoing battle between US tree-sitters and North America’s big logging firms pitches some of the world’s most determined activists against some of its most ruthless corporations. It is a battle that the tree-sitters simply must not lose.
This beautiful but deadly plant proliferates in lakes across Africa – choking everything in its path. Why, asks Tom Hargreaves, have all attempts to manage it failed?
The economic troubles in Argentina have been widely reported around the world. The impoverishment of the middle classes and the Argentines’ growing cynicism about their politicians have been extensively written up. Less well covered in the news has been the effects of the crisis on Argentina’s very poorest – people who live far from the eye of city-based reporters, the country’s original inhabitants, a people despised and vilified as ‘savages’ by the settler population.
