November 6th - 10th

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ENN rounds up the most important and compelling environmental news stories of the week. In the news November 6th - 10th: Tree planting, glacier melt, a trash vortex, dolphin legs, and much more.

Top Ten Articles of the Week

In the news November 6th - 10th: Tree planting, glacier melt, a trash vortex, dolphin legs, and much more.


1. Kenyan Nobel Prize Winner Launches Campaign to Plant One Billion Trees in 2007
A Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner called on people around the world to plant 1 billion trees in the next year, saying Wednesday the effort is a way ordinary citizens can fight global warming. Wangari Maathai, who in 2004 became the first black African woman to win a Nobel in any category, urged participants to ensure the trees thrive long after they are planted.


2. Groups Sue to End Gulf Bluefin Fishing
Bluefin tuna fishing should be shut down in the Gulf of Mexico to keep one of the world's largest and most valuable fish from dying out, environmentalists say. Federal fisheries managers say bluefin already are highly protected in domestic waters, and the species' decline is an international problem.


3. Climate Change Melting Fabled African Glaciers
Climate change is melting a legendary ice field in equatorial Africa and may soon thaw it out completely, threatening fresh water supplies to hundreds of thousands of people, a climate expert said on Thursday.


4. Plastic Trash Vortex Menaces Pacific Sealife
Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says. Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.


5. Environmentalists Warn of Shark Troubles
Many species of shark are facing a serious threat to their existence because of worldwide fishing trends, environmentalists said Wednesday. One-third of the more than 500 shark species are threatened with extinction or are close to being threatened.


6. Global Warming Said Threat to World Heritage
Global warming is threatening archaeological sites from Peru to Egypt as well as natural wonders such as the Caribbean's largest coral reef, a U.N. report said on Tuesday. Heritage sites linked to thousands of years of civilisation "may by virtue of climate change very well not be available to future generations," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme.


7. Coca-Cola Undertaking Africa Water Project, CEO Says
Coca-Cola Co. said Wednesday it would help to bring clean drinking water to parts of Africa in a plan to work with local communities on environmental issues like water management. "We're focusing on water because we're a hydration company," Neville Isdell, chief executive of the world's largest beverage company, said.


8. Millions in Asia Suffering from Lack of Water and Proper Sanitation
Two out of three people in South Asia lack basic sanitation, numbers that put the region on a par with sub-Saharan Africa, said a U.N. report issued Thursday that described the provision of toilet facilities as crucial to social and economic development.


9. Icebergs Near New Zealand after Drifting from Atlantic
Scores of icebergs have floated to within about 300 km (186 miles) of New Zealand, with the largest measuring about 1.8 km (1.1 miles) in length and standing some 120 metres (360 feet) above water.


10. Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs
Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.


Photo: Baby green sea turtles at French Frigate Shoals. The turtles are being helped to the sea by volunteers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Tern Island. Ninety percent of all green sea turtles in the Hawaiian Archipelago return to French Frigate Shoals to nest. Photo credit: James Watt/Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Multi-Agency Education Project.


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