The government of Hawaii - once a defender of the GM corn industry - has passed a law that forces agro-chemical companies to disclose what pesticides they spray. It has also become the first US state to ban the chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to brain damage in babies. Christopher Pala reports
New Zealand's Maui dolphin, the world's smallest, is headed to extinction after a half-century of lethal encounters with fishermen's nets. Even as government-funded scientists detail its decline and opposition Labour and Greens call for net bans - which opinion polls show most Kiwis support - the ruling National Party, headed by a fishing magnate, denies there is any problem. CHRISTOPHER PALA reports ...
New Zealand's "Clean and Green" image has been tarnished by revelations that senior officials covered up massive waste and fraud in its fisheries even as they claimed that the country neo-liberal management scheme was a world leader. Amazingly, some still do.
CHRISTOPHER PALA reports
The global catch of fish and seafood is falling at three times the rate reported by the United Nations and urgently needs to be slowed to avoid a crash, reports Christopher Pala. The finding comes in a new study for Nature which quantifies the huge illegal industrial fish pillaging taking place around the world, together with artisanal catches, which in 2010 added over 50% to UN estimates.
Hawaii has got everything, writes Christopher Pala, and not just for holidaymakers. It's also the perfect place for biotech companies to develop GMO corn varieties and spray them with toxic agrochemicals. People are getting sprayed too - and doctors report high rates of birth defects. But grassroots efforts to restrict the use of pesticides have twice been over-ruled by state courts.
The unprecedented Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement will, if all goes to plan, preserve vast swathes of the country's pristine wilderness. But as environmentalists and the logging industry begin to roll the initiative out, there are claims that not everything is as it should be, reports Christopher Pala
