Background Articles

It's become the norm in recent years — the closure of the once-popular recreational salmon fishery on the Yukon River. And it's happening again this summer, for both chinook and chum salmon.

With marine heat waves helping to wipe out some of Alaska’s storied salmon runs in recent years, officials have resorted to sending emergency food shipments to affected communities while scientists warn that the industry’s days of traditional harvests may be numbered. Salmon all but disappeared from the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) Yukon River run last year.

Drought and extreme heat that scientists link to climate change are altering the UNESCO-protected marshlands. Iraq's average annual temperatures are increasing at nearly double the rate of Earth's.

The Interdepartmental Working Group approved a list of priority measures to eliminate environmental damage in the town of Usolie-Sibirskoye, Irkutsk Region. This was reported by the press service of Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko.

A combination in Colorado of paltry spring snow, warmer temperatures that triggered earlier melting of winter mountain snowpack, feeble rain through summer, and parched soil from previous dry years led to this formal label.

A lack of wild bees and managed honeybees is limiting pollination and yields for certain crops on farms in British Columbia and across the United States, a collective of researchers has found.

Clouds of the insects can stretch for miles, devouring vegetation and destroying crops. Locust experts say time is running out to get the swarms under control because they multiply so quickly.

The Arctic Salmon Project collected 2,400 samples from the western Arctic this year — more than the past 20 years combined.

The Mulchatna herd was not at the peak numbers it once had decades ago. Over-hunting, migration changes and wolf predation could be leading causes of decline in herd.

In just a few years, 8 million native angasi oyster hatchlings have been placed in the waters off Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia, on the recycled mollusc shells collected from restaurants. They've turned empty, sandy seabeds into thriving ecosystems.

Around the world, 17 countries are currently facing extremely high water stress. Climate change is making the problem worse.

Average daytime temperatures in Guatemala have risen over the past decade, while crop-damaging frosts are more common.

Due to the recent devastating drought, soybean production in Uruguay is forecast to drop to 1.7 million tons in 2017-18, according to an April 30 Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The average temperature for the entire country was 1.2 degrees above normal in March. It is thus the twelfth month in a row that the temperature in Norway has been above normal.

Last year's drought summer resulted in halved grass crops in Eastern Norway compared to the previous year, according to recent figures from Statistics Norway. - The consequences of the drought continue to affect the daily lives of many farmers, says Lars Petter Bartnes, leader of the Norwegian Farmers' Union.

At least a third of the ice in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush will thaw this century as temperatures rise, disrupting river flows vital for growing crops from China to India, scientists say.

In this corner of the Middle East, a changing climate and debilitating dust storms have brought life to a standstill.

Norman Yakeleya is calling for an emergency meeting with the federal and territorial governments to discuss the threat of chronic wasting disease (CWD) with the potential to decimate northern caribou herds.

An unprecedented drought in Afghanistan has led to families selling their children just to be able to feed their households.