Inter Press Service: Seen from up high, the route to Puente Inambari looks like a green serpent -- long, robust and sinuous. The Amazon jungle that dominates this landscape will be underwater if one of the largest hydroelectric dams in Peru (and all Latin America) is built. At Puente Inambari, the regions of Puno, Cuzco and Madre de Dios converge, in southeast Peru. Some 70 villages in these regions would have to be relocated if the Peruvian government approves the definitive concession to EGASUR ...

Reuters: BP Plc's ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well is secure with no threat of spewing crude again, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Saturday. "We basically have secured this well," retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said. "We have essentially eliminated the threat of discharge from the well at this point." A cap atop failed blowout preventer equipment on the Macondo well had sealed in all oil flow since July 15. On Friday, BP replaced the failed equipment ...

Independent: Since its establishment more than a decade ago, the reputation of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has been as spotless as the consciences of shoppers who buy fish bearing its blue "tick" logo in the expectation it has been sustainably caught. Until now. In a trenchant attack on the world's biggest certifier of ethical fish, a group of six marine experts have accused the MSC of giving in too readily to the demands of big trawler organisations and endorsing fisheries racked by ...

Interlochen Public Radio: Michigan and Wisconsin have agreed to cooperate on efforts to study and slow the effects of climate change in the Great Lakes region. The agreement allows Michigan to adopt Wisconsin's climate plan, which is further along in development. Michael Beaulac, with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, says it makes sense to cooperate because Great Lakes shipping, wildlife migration and habitat shifts don't stop at state borders. "For example, we may have less ...

Inter Press Service: Despite a bumper harvest of maize just a few months ago, many residents in the eastern part of Kenya are facing hunger and starvation. While granaries in the region may be full, the grain cannot be freely sold, let alone eaten. "It is said to be contaminated. Government experts have warned us that it has aflatoxins," said Judith Mwende from Mutomo village, in Kitui district east Kenya. Aflatoxins, locally known in the region as 'mbuka', have affected nearly all the residents of ...

New Scientist: The stalled weather pattern blamed for disastrous floods in Pakistan and a record heatwave in Russia may have averted disasters elsewhere by putting the North Atlantic hurricane season on hold. Forecasters had predicted that warm sea-surface temperatures and the onset of the weather pattern known as La Niña would make a busy Atlantic hurricane season this year. In June, Phil Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University predicted 18 tropical storms, with 10 reaching ...

AFP: British oil giant BP revealed Friday it has so far spent eight billion dollars to battle the Gulf of Mexico disaster, as its crews retrieved key evidence from the seabed. Robotic submarines recorded the delicate operation as engineers raised a failed blowout preventer from the ruptured well and began lifting it to the surface in order to hand it over to the US Justice Department. The US government is conducting what could be a criminal investigation into the April 20 explosion ...

Missoulian: The Columbia River Treaty doesn't come up much in casual conversation. Even at this week's Legislative Council on River Guidance in Missoula, the 45-year-old agreement was an eye-opener for the representatives of Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. It governs the fate of 8.5 million acre-feet of stored water in Canada, which can produce around 450 megawatts of electricity before it reaches the U.S. border and goes through more reservoirs and dams. The council members were ...

Inter Press Service: Sugarcane could replace the energy produced by three hydroelectric dams like the Belo Monte in the Amazon, claims the Brazilian sugarcane industry, which remains relegated to marginal participation in the national electricity matrix. Brazil's sugarcane straw and pulp could generate 12,200 megawatts, while the Belo Monte dam, to be built on the northern Amazonian Xingú River, will generate just 4,571 megawatts on average, according to UNICA, the sugarcane industry association, in the ...

SciDev.Net: A huge effort to collect and analyse data on the devastating floods wreaking havoc in northern Pakistan has been severely undermined by a lack of strategies for disaster management and the dissemination of information, scientists and disaster experts have said. The Pakistan Meteorological Department's flood forecasting division provides information on the size and flow of the floods using data from an extensive network of weather radars along the Indus river as well as an Indus flood ...