Environment

The Forest Stewardship Council -- a widely recognized third-party labeling system to identify "green" wood and paper products -- has acknowledged that some companies using its label are destroying pristine forests and says it plans to overhaul its rules. Read More

Oil giant BP has been fined a total of $373m (£182m) by the US Department of Justice for environmental crimes and committing fraud. Read More

Tata, India's largest conglomerate, wants to take 10,000 acres of land to mine ilmenite in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The plan has sparked protests by local villagers who say the project will destroy their traditional way of life and the environment. Read More

Russia is forging ahead with ambitious energy projects in eastern Siberia, but the indigenous Evenk people are complaining that their age-old way of life is in danger. Read More

The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. Read More

The Yadana natural gas pipeline runs through the heart of the debate on corporate responsibility as to how foreign businesses should operate in a country ruled by a military dictatorship accused of widespread human rights abuses and violent suppression of dissent within its borders. Read More

Total SA, reacting Thursday to comments by French President Sarkozy urging the oil and gas giant to refrain from new investment in Myanmar, said it had not made any capital expenditure there since 1998. The military junta that rules Myanmar this week escalated its efforts to repress pro-democracy demonstrations led by thousands of Buddhist monks. Read More

Huasco Valley property owners who live below the Pascua Lama gold mine and administer US$3 million yearly in "hush" money given them by mine owner Barrick Gold charged this weekend that their predecessors used Barrick's money for personal gain. Read More

Ever since Rick Ness was accused of contaminating pristine Indonesian water, he's been spending a million a month to convince the world that he's innocent. And once you meet him, you'll want to believe him. Read More

Early this August, Rosina Phillipe and Ruby Ancar drove from the government-issued trailers where they are still living two years after Katrina, to a boat landing at the end of a long dirt road. You have to go by boat to get to their tiny town of Grand Bayou, a "wetland community" in Plaquemines Parish, not far from where the Mississippi River empties out into the Gulf of Mexico.   Read More