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North Pacific Fishery Management Council protects seafloor habitat areas in Bering Sea

It's official -- and unanimous. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to ban bottom trawling of some 180,000 square miles of previously unexploited ocean floor in the Bering Sea, particularly in the North.

The area is home to 26 species of marine mammals, including whales and walruses, as well as 450 species of fish and million of seabirds that flock to the region from all seven continents.

Starter Kit Your Engines!

It’s not too late to win a chance at a Grist green-living kit Perhaps you’ve noticed that we’ve been raising money over the last week or so. If you’ve already […]

Yellow Jersey Optional

City of Paris to begin bike-sharing program Ah, Paris. The sex tape! The jail time! Wait, wait … wrong Paris. Ahem. The croissants! The berets! The phallic tower! And now: […]

As If Trees Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About

As landowners age, future of family-owned forests in U.S. is unclear An interesting phenomenon is sprouting up among American landowners — or forest-owners, to be precise. Nearly 60 percent of […]

Birds of a Feather Decline Together

Common American bird populations have dropped sharply Populations of 20 common American bird species have declined by at least half in the last 40 years, according to a new analysis […]

Bill of Fights

In exclusive blog post, Kerry calls for energy progress and laments GOP roadblocks Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) swung by our blog Gristmill yesterday to post about the ongoing tussle in […]

Washington watersheds deserve better data

Water-typing is the name for a process of identifying and cateorizing streams, lakes, and wetlands in terms of their importance for biodiversity and human use. It's a pretty basic inventory developed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources in the 1970s, and it works, but only when it's done right.

The accompanying image shows what happens when it's done wrong. In January, this important habitat for fish was logged without any protection simply because the map was in error: it failed to show that this stream supported fish. Normally, this sort of waterway would have at least received a 58 foot buffer. An important regional group, the Wild Fish Conservancy (the author of the photo), has demonstrated that the original maps underestimate the actual miles of fish-bearing streams statewide by up to 50 percent!

Buffalo and Behold

Herds of migrating wildlife survive and thrive in southern Sudan Wildlife populations are thriving in, of all places, war-wracked southern Sudan. The first aerial wildlife survey of the country taken […]

OK, We’re Moving to Iceland

World Health Organization ranks countries’ environmental health To those who think environmentalism is all about prioritizing starfish over humans, read on: Cleaning up the globe’s air and water could save […]

Don’t Count Your Hatchery Salmon Before They Hatch, or Even After

Judge rules hatchery fish don’t count when determining ESA status A federal judge in Washington state has overturned a contentious Bush administration policy that had tallied hatchery-raised fish as well […]