Activism

"TOKYO -- Prosecutors Friday indicted an anti-whaling activist from New Zealand for illegally boarding a Japanese harpoon boat as part of a protest against the ship's whale hunting expedition in Antarctic seas in February."

"BELEM, Brazil — A top activist for land reform in Brazil's Amazon has been murdered, police said Thursday."

"Tomato plants throughout much of the Northeast were hit last summer with a devastating fungal disease called 'late blight.' ... But as the climate gets warmer this year, green thumbs probably won't face the same threat."

Trucks full of gunmen sought to kill 64-year old Sister Leonora Brunetto, who had spent decades trying to keep ranchers from stealing Amazon land. "Impunity in the Amazon because of a weak judicial system and corruption among local officials is endemic, a problem not only for people like Brunetto, but for the Brazilian government trying to preserve a rain forest the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi. More than 20 percent of the forest already has been destroyed."

"Europe's best known landmarks -- including the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and Rome's Colosseum -- fell dark Saturday, following Sydney's Opera House and Beijing's Forbidden City in joining a global climate change protest, as lights were switched off across the world to mark the Earth Hour event."

"Honorary Sierra Club President and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, Dr. Edgar Wayburn died late Friday night at his home in San Francisco in the presence of his family. He was 103."

"No one can accuse Naomi Davis of lacking ambition. She wants simultaneously to rebuild black America and save the planet -- one neighborhood at a time. She knows she cannot do either alone. Her plan is to recruit and train an army. A green army."

"In the early 1980s, the cancer deaths of four little girls — whose bodies were so tiny they could fit in shoe boxes — forced Hazel Johnson to shift the focus of an organization she'd recently founded."

"Anti-whaling activists are returning to Australia after an engine problem forced them to end this season's Antarctic campaign against Japanese whalers."

"Some local chapters of environmental groups find themselves battling their national leadership over issues like natural gas. The national groups see natural gas as a less-harmful alternative to coal. But local groups fear the damage that gas production could bring to their fresh water and landscapes."