environment

In the new economy created by global warming, forests are turning into a valuable commodity. Promising not to cut them down is one of the most popular ways companies would like to offset their emissions. Correspondent Mark Schapiro follows the trail of one of those offset projects deep into Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.

This multimedia feature is a joint project between CIR and FRONTLINE/World.

Associate reporter Kristi Coale describes how the monarch butterfly came to be at the center of the debate over genetically modified foods. Coale investigates whether the public debate on the monarch - and the large amounts of money raised to save it - are helpful in the end, and questions what will happen to other environmental issues that might not come wrapped in a package as beautiful as the monarch butterfly.

Corporate profits are threatened today by new demands to protect the environment. Reporter Eve Pell reveals that a number of corporations have adopted an array of tactics designed to erode the strong popular support gained by environmental, health and consumer advocates.

Part two of a three part series investigating environmental, corruption, and health concerns related to the $3.7 billion oil pipeline under construction in Chad and Cameroon. The pipeline, built by an international consortium, including the World Bank, ExxonMobil, and ChevronTexaco, is expected to begin pumping oil for the U.S. market by the end of 2003. The second story in this series explores the unfulfilled promises made by the pipeline consortium to create economic development and offset environmental destruction along the pipeline route.

This investigation explores rising tensions in Northern California between environmentalists and advocates of "home rule," a movement in which local governments adopt land-use plans and pass ordinances that directly challenge the federal government"s authority. Reporter Constance Matthiessen reveals that the debate is the battleground for conflicting visions of community and environment rights, touching on issues as diverse and unlikely as local culture, centralized government and the U.S. Constitution.

At least 5,000 environmentalists demonstrated here today at a Pacific Lumber Co. mill to protest the proposed logging of the last privately held groves of old-growth redwood forest in the world.

By early evening between 300 and 400 protesters, including singer Bonnie Raitt, had been arrested and handcuffed on charges of intentionally trespassing on Pacific Lumber land, according to the Associated Press.

Salvage logging was scheduled to begin here Monday at the end of the nesting season of the marbled murrelet, an endangered seabird. However, environmentalists were able to celebrate a small victory at the rally because Pacific Lumber, the forest's owner, agreed Friday to postpone logging in the ancient groves while federal officials and company representatives attempt to reach agreement on saving one of the six endangered groves.

The sinking of the oil tanker Prestige off the Spanish coast last year caused one of Europe's worst ecological disasters. "The Lawless Sea,” a result of a year-long investigation conducted by reporter Mark Schapiro, provides a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the maritime industry, long shrouded in secrecy and protected from accountability by complex corporate structures and foreign flags. The story unveils the tangled web of responsibility behind a historic environmental catastrophe and reveals elements of the international maritime system that facilitate keeping an enfeebled tanker such as the Prestige – and many like it – operating on the high seas.

Reporters William Kistner and Kyla Dunn investigate the toxic threat posed by harmful chemicals. The reportreveals thatb researchers are focusing on fetal damage caused by exposure to contaminants in order to gauge the impact of harmful chemicals on humans and wildlife.