Citizens of Cáceres, Spain, are opposing lithium mining project that jeopardises World Heritage and sustainable livelihoods at a new extractive frontier.
Extreme water waste is driven by private profit motives - and is unacceptable in a time of climate change. The UK must bring its water supply back into public ownership, argues ADAM McGIBBON
Water resilience is among the most important discussions at the COP23, taking place in Bonn. This is particularly true for the communities living in the Pacific Islands. But also for all countries facing floods and famine in the decades to come. MARK FLETCHER calls for global action.
World Water Week 2017 this month brought together experts and decision makers to debate solutions to a growing global clean water crisis. DR MARK FLETCHER told the conference that the circular economy - and systems thinking - must be part of the solution
The Ecologist is delighted to launch its collaboration with the Climate Tracker initiative today, with an article about the impact of climate change on the Middle East and North Africa region from LINA YASSIN. The Sudanese engineering student argues that climate change is already affecting the region in dire ways.
The winner of the 2017 Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy and Water - announced today (12th June, 2017) - is Futurepump, which manufactures an affordable, highly efficient and portable solar irrigation pump aimed at the millions of smallholder farmers in Kenya and around the world, writes CHHAVI SHARMA
London-listed copper giant Antofagasta has been entangled in scandals in Chile involving water depletion, dangers to local communities, corruption of national politics and environmental contamination, write Ali Maeve & Liam Barrington-Bush. Yet the London Stock Exchange remains silent. Following the company's AGM last week, a new London Mining Network report puts their actions and operations into the spotlight.
There is a growing global movement to recognise the rights of rivers, writes Debadityo Sinha. But rights alone are not enough. We must love and respect rivers, and even think like rivers to understand the vital functions they perform within landscapes and ecosystems, and so discover where their 'best interests' truly lie. And then we must be willing to act: protecting rivers and restoring them to health and wholeness.
A new study in Pennsylvania, USA shows that fracking is strongly related to increased mortality in young babies. The effect is most pronounced in counties with many drinking water wells indicating that contamination by 'produced water' from fracking is a likely cause. Radioactive pollution with uranium, thorium and radium is a 'plausible explanation' for the excess deaths.
Mining was imposed on the Salvadoran people as a dream industry to aid development, create jobs and yield taxes to pay for schools and hospitals, write Ricardo Navarro & Sam Cossar-Gilber. But the reality was a nightmare of polluted water, stolen farmland, corporate violence, and murder. After a long campaign, El Salvador has just become the first country to ban all metal mining.
Venezuela is set to hand over 12% of the nation's territory in the upper reaches of the Amazon rainforest to mining corporations, writes Lucio Marcello, with 150 companies from 35 countries poised to devastate the army-controlled 'special economic zone'. But resistance is growing, and a counter-proposal aims to protect the area's precious biodiversity, indigenous cultures and water resources in a new South Orinoco Mega Reserve.
A new study sets out the huge benefits of organic farming to people and the environment, writes Peter Melchett, including more wildlife, healthier consumers and farm workers, lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduced soil erosion and increased water retention. We need more of it, fast!
