• Food

Oyster Sales Bounce Back After A Meager Pandemic Year

• oceans
• oysters

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer A year ago, things seemed bad for New Jersey’s oyster growers — restaurants shut down during the pandemic, hampering the oyster market, and sending farmers into a tailspin. But now, sales are back and better than ever. Scott Lennox, a founder of the Barnegat Oyster Collective, told the New York […]

• Climate Change

G7 Countries Promise to Stop Financing Coal — Don’t Set Date to Stop Burning It

• climate change
• fossil fuels
• G7
• internal Combustion Engine

by Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer World leaders from the Group of 7 countries wrapped up their first post-pandemic in-person summit on Sunday, and the climate crisis was one of the primary agenda items. The heads of state from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Japan (as well as the European Union) Agreed […]

• Water

“Glacier Blood” Threatens Mountain Ecosystems as High Altitude Temperatures Rise

• glaciers
• snow

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer “Glacier blood,” or “watermelon snow,” is sweeping across the Alps, and researchers are eager to survey the snow to figure out what’s responsible for the mysterious phenomenon—the culprit: algal blooms. A new study has found that the same algae that cause dreaded red tide are now blooming en masse on mountains worldwide. […]

• Forests

Biden Administration Moves to Restore Tongass Roadless Rule

• Biden Administration
• Forests
• Tongass

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer The Biden administration has announced that it will “replace or repeal” a Trump rollback of the Clinton-Era “roadless rule” in the Tongass National Forest. The roadless rule protected 9.4 million acres of the forest, prohibiting road construction and timber harvesting. The Trump administration rolled back the rule in October 2020 to ease […]

• Animals

Humans Must Learn to Coexist With Nature

• animals
• biodiversity
• CBD
• coexistence
• elephants
• nature

By Nilanga Jayasinghe, Manager of the Wildlife Conservation team at World Wildlife Fund  Imagine living in a modern, densely populated city. On any given morning, you might expect to look out your window and see a stream of cars and pedestrians on their daily commute, bustling shops and restaurants selling their wares, or perhaps local […]

• Water

Biden Administration Moves to Reverse Trump Rollbacks of Clean Water Act

• #30x30
• Clean Water Act
• rollback
• water pollution
• Waters of the U.S. Rule
• wetlands
• WOTUS

One more of the Trump administration’s rollbacks will meet its demise as EPA Administrator Michael Regan and the Biden administration are planning to reinstate protections for many marshes, streams, and wetlands — expanding again the coverage of the Clean Water Act under the “Waters of the U.S.” or “WOTUS” rule. 

Why This Matters: Since the late 1700s, 221 million acres of wetlands have been drained in the U.S. for agricultural use. This development has had severe consequences, including fertilizer and pollution runoff threatening drinking water for millions of people.