Green Options

Cook Inletkeeper, a community-based nonprofit, is ensuring the survival of critically endangered Cook Inlet Beluga Whales as part of its mission to protect Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains.

Founded in 1994 by a group of Alaskans who met for a workshop on environmental law, science and policy, Cook Inletkeeper combines advocacy, education, and science for a vibrant and healthy Cook Inlet watershed.

Cook Inletkeeper has an impressive list of environmental accomplishments. It is interesting to note that the organization won 3 years of start up funding from oil and gas producers in a 1995 lawsuit:

Alaska Center for the Environment, Greenpeace and Trustees for Alaska - joined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - sued Cook Inlet oil and gas producers (Unocal, Shell-Western & Marathon) for over 4,200 Clean Water Act violations. The oil and gas companies settled the lawsuit rather than face hefty penalties in court, and directed 3 years of start-up funding to Cook Inletkeeper.

Most recently, Cook Inletkeeper was awarded the 2009 River Warrior Award.

A new drilling study has definitively dated the Amazon River at over 11 million years old, and it has held its current form for at least the last 2.4 million years.

The Amazon is one of the two longest rivers in the world, and its flood basin is home to one third of all the species on Earth. Discovering the river’s age is a stark reminder of just how ancient and intertwined the Amazonian ecosystem is, including the immensely rich biodiversity which calls it home.

“Leave No Trace” has always been an honored credo of the Boy Scouts of America. The trumpeted tenet is supposed to refer to ethical guidelines which preach having a minimal impact on land, nature and wildlife. But according to a recent investigation, the Boy Scouts have been caught logging over 34,000 acres of pristine forest over the last 20 years, including 60 clearcuts and 35 salvage harvests. They’ve literally left no trace– of the forests.

Furthermore, the survey showed that most of the acreage was logged to turn a backdoor profit, and there’s evidence of corruption. A number of Scout councils submitted inaccurate and misleading logging plans, and allegedly disregarded rules and regulations which were in place to protect wildlife and the watershed. Some of the deals even involve cozy relationships with private companies and state regulators.

As more and more suburban developments spring up around the country, wildlife is being displaced at an ever-increasing rate. As a result of this growth, the natural predators of deer are being killed or removed, leaving them free to eat everything in sight. Where there's very little forest left, there are also very few hunters. Registration of hunting licenses in some places has dropped almost 40% compared to numbers in 2005. Even animal rights

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