Author: Rhett Butler

  • Japan’s earthquake disaster may boost rainforest logging in Borneo

    Malaysian loggers say Japan’s recovery from last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami will boost demand for rainforest timber, reports the Borneo Post. AmResearch, an investment research firm based in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, said logging companies that export plywood to Japan are poised to benefit from reconstruction.

  • Indigenous tribes, ranchers team to battle Amazon fires

    Facing the worst outbreak of forest fires in three years, cattle ranchers and indigenous tribesmen in the southern Amazon have teamed up to extinguish nearly two dozen blazes over the past three months, offering hope that new alliances between long-time adversaries could help keep deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon on a downward trajectory. The…

  • Massive oil plume discovered in the Gulf

    Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a result of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reports a study published in Science. The 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped…

  • Vampire killing spree in Peru

    At least four children died after rabid vampire bats attacked Awajun indigenous communities in a remote part of Peru, reports the BBC. Peru’s health ministry sent emergency teams to vaccinate villagers in the affected area of Urakusa, which is located close to the border with Ecuador. More than 500 people were reportedly bitten by vampire…