Word: forests
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...Penan, an aboriginal tribe of hunters and gatherers on the island of Borneo, are a people under siege. They have watched in horror as logging companies inexorably cut down the forests that supply the tribe with food, medicines and even the poison for blowgun darts used to kill monkeys and hornbill. Outraged at seeing their way of life destroyed, the Penan have periodically blockaded roads leading into the forest in a losing effort to keep the loggers out. Says Penan headman Asik Nyelit, who has twice been arrested by Malaysian authorities for his role in the blockades: "If we just...
...lumber is most often made into throwaway plywood construction forms used to mold concrete. Nor is the situation in Borneo unusual. Japan's heavy demand for wood has led to the deforestation of vast tracts in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Last April the Japan Tropical Forest Action Network, a small but feisty environmental group based in Tokyo, presented the giant Marubeni Corp., one of the world's largest importers of tropical hardwoods, with a mock award: a cardboard chain saw for winning the Grand Prix for Tropical Forest Destruction...
Strolling outside Arizona's Kitt Peak National Observatory during a work break, staff observer Paul Avellar at first thought the angry red glow in the night sky was caused by forest fires. Then, seeing a greenish fringe and vertical streamers stretching like ribbons above the horizon, he realized what was happening. He raced to a telephone and called his wife and friends, awakening them and insisting they share the view. "A chance like this doesn't come along very often," says Avellar. "To see the northern lights is very humbling and awe-inspiring. You realize the sun is just going...
...higher than St. Peter's, its inspiration -- but Our Lady of Peace will accommodate 2,000 fewer worshipers than St. Peter's. The Yamoussoukro basilica is the dazzling centerpiece of a building boom launched by President Felix Houphouet-Boigny to carve a modern capital out of the rain forest, 135 miles from the coast and the urban center of Abidjan, the former capital...
...veteran good-earthers. Cheers' Ted Danson, president of the American Oceans Campaign, lobbies Congress to help save the oceans. Barbra Streisand offers a $250,000 donation to the Environmental Defense Fund. Robert Redford, who is planning a film with Steven Spielberg about the damaging of a rain forest, speaks on global warming at a Senate hearing. "It's important to raise the environment to the same level as national security," Redford says. "If we poison our planet, what is there left to defend...