Word: basin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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True enough, but I could be forgiven for expecting more. Bonobos are an endangered African ape found only in the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.), the vast, sweltering river basin that is Africa's answer to the Amazon. Though they look like chimpanzees, they are a distinct species. They are slightly smaller, for one thing, the better to handle a life spent predominantly in trees. But it is the bonobos' social behavior that fascinates humans. While gorillas beat their chests and chimpanzees fight savage wars, bonobos appear to be largely animals of peace. They live communally, enjoy gender equality...
...hippie chimps are showing us no love. The jungle is giving us none either, with army ants, sweat bees and black gnats swarming us. But we have traveled hundreds of miles in a rickety propeller plane to reach a grass strip in the heart of the Congo Basin, nursed a wrecked jeep down 100 miles (160 km) of bicycle track and hacked all morning through vines and thorns on the promise that the peaceniks of the animal kingdom would show us what they're about. So far, there's been some rustling in the trees, a few shrieks...
...country has already declared reserve land means 10.5% of the D.R.C. is now under protection, more than two-thirds of the way to the government's long-stated goal of 15%. When I join Coxe, Mehlman and Tusumba, they are touring the Congo Basin, spreading their conservation message in the hope of adding that final third...
...worrying question is whether it will ever stop. A major, prolonged drought, combined with rapid population growth in nearby urban areas like Las Vegas, has stressed Lake Mead and the rest of the Colorado River Basin, which provides water to farmers and cities from Colorado to Southern California. Now there are fears that global warming could drastically reduce the Colorado River's flow--even as the Southwest continues to expand. Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., last month estimated that there is a 50% chance that Lake Mead could be effectively...
...study for failing to take into account improved water-management policies that could keep the lake wet well into the future. But it is as clear as those chalky white bathtub rings that Mead and the Colorado River are getting lower, and that could leave the states along the basin--whose populations grew 10% from 2000 to 2006, compared with the U.S. average of 5.6%--high and dry. "We don't think this is a regular drought," says Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority (snwa). "Something is going on. Something is happening...