Blog Posts
- Lacey Act Protects Forests in the U.S. and Worldwide – But Only if Fully Enforced
Lacey Act Protects Forests in the U.S. and Worldwide – But Only if Fully Enforced
On August 6, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first Lacey Act prosecution involving illegal logging in the United States. This is good news and sends a powerful message to the timber industry at home...
- Al Jazeera Documentary Tracks Illegal Peruvian Wood Entering U.S.
Al Jazeera Documentary Tracks Illegal Peruvian Wood Entering U.S.
A new investigative documentary released this week by Al Jazeera, “Peru’s Rotten Wood,” shows with new evidence that illegally logged timber stolen from the Peruvian Amazon is still coming to the United States markets, making U.S. customers...
- Bringing the Curtain Down on U.S. Ivory
Bringing the Curtain Down on U.S. Ivory
Today is World Elephant Day, and we at EIA are celebrating U.S. leadership to combat the elephant poaching epidemic and the steps the United States is taking to ensure our own market doesn’t contribute to the decline of elephants...
- China Signals Intention to Transition To Truly Low-GWP Alternatives
China Signals Intention to Transition To Truly Low-GWP Alternatives
China’s Foreign Economic Cooperation Office under the Ministry of Environmental Protection (FECO), recently published the ‘First Catalogue of Recommended Substitutes for HCFCs.’ The catalogue lists natural low-GWP alternatives as the only substitutes...
- EIA Leads Discussions on Illegal Commodity-Driven Forest Conversion in Congo Basin
EIA Leads Discussions on Illegal Commodity-Driven Forest Conversion in Congo Basin
This past June, more than 600 stakeholders met in Yaoundé, Cameroon as part of the 15th Meeting of Parties of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP). The CBFP is a multi-stakeholder partnership that was launched in 2002 during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa by former U.S. Secretary...
- Increased Momentum Towards an HFC Phase Down
Increased Momentum Towards an HFC Phase Down
This week saw significant international progress in the fight against climate change. China and Brazil, two of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, have both made significant policy announcements to curb the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)...
- As Secretary Jewell Visits Vietnam and China, EIA Urges Action for Rhinos and Elephants
As Secretary Jewell Visits Vietnam and China, EIA Urges Action for Rhinos and Elephants
This week, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell travels to China and Vietnam, the world’s leading consumer markets for elephant ivory and rhino horn. Wildlife trafficking is high on the Secretary’s trip agenda, and indeed the U.S. agenda in general...
- Crushing the Illegal Ivory Trade, One Market at a Time
Crushing the Illegal Ivory Trade, One Market at a Time
Last Friday, the Unites States destroyed more than one ton of seized illegal ivory in the middle of Times Square, New York—the second time in two years that ivory has been crushed in the Unites States...
- Tanzania in Denial & Still Trying to Spin Elephant Poaching Crisis
Tanzania in Denial & Still Trying to Spin Elephant Poaching Crisis
This is a blog contribution from EIA's sister office in the UK, originally posted on eia-international.org. Finally admitting this week that it has presided over a catastrophic 60 percent collapse in its elephant population due to poaching...
- Lumber Liquidators’ CEO Resigns Amid Investigation into Illegal Timber Imports
Lumber Liquidators’ CEO Resigns Amid Investigation into Illegal Timber Imports
Lumber Liquidators Chief Executive Officer Robert Lynch has resigned unexpectedly as the company faces criminal charges over illegally sourced Russian hardwood and lawsuits over the formaldehyde content of its products...
- EPA Drives U.S. Innovation, Some Companies Defend Climate Negligence
EPA Drives U.S. Innovation, Some Companies Defend Climate Negligence
U.S. industry has arrived at a pivotal point, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a significant opportunity to guide industry towards a profitable, energy efficient, and climate-friendly future. As the EPA works to finalize a proposed rulemaking prohibiting the use of high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in certain end-uses, two primary questions are raised: Will the EPA produce a rule making...
- Shell’s Conditional Approval to Drill in the Arctic Threatens Beluga Whales
Shell’s Conditional Approval to Drill in the Arctic Threatens Beluga Whales
On Monday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) gave conditional approval of Shell’s revised multi-year exploration plan to drill in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska’s Arctic, a decision which endangers Arctic marine mammals like the beluga whale. By Shell’s own...
- Guest Blogger Counts Down the Top Colleges and Universities for Environmental Studies
Guest Blogger Counts Down the Top Colleges and Universities for Environmental Studies
Last month, thousands of high school seniors received college acceptance letters and today, on College Signing Day, they are making the ultimate decision about where they’ll spend the next four years...
- What Does the U.S. Arctic Council Chairmanship Mean for Belugas and Other Arctic Species?
What Does the U.S. Arctic Council Chairmanship Mean for Belugas and Other Arctic Species?
Today, Secretary of State John Kerry is in Iqaluit, Canada, to accept the U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, and with it to take on a rare opportunity to shape the future of the region. Founded in 1996, the Arctic Council...
- The Montreal Protocol Special Meetings in Bangkok: Q&A with EIA
The Montreal Protocol Special Meetings in Bangkok: Q&A with EIA
The Montreal Protocol’s Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) meetings, with a special focus on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), take place in Bangkok next week. EIA’s team will be at these meetings...
- Der Spiegel Exposes Timber Company over Illegal Romanian Timber
Der Spiegel Exposes Timber Company over Illegal Romanian Timber
The leading German news magazine, Der Spiegel, has concluded that Austrian-based wood products company Holzindustrie Schweighofer (Schweighofer) repeatedly agreed to accept illegally harvested timber from undercover...
- Enviro Film Festival’s Gambling on Extinction Drives Home the Atrocious Reality of Poaching
Enviro Film Festival’s Gambling on Extinction Drives Home the Atrocious Reality of Poaching
Today marks the start of Washington, D.C.’s highly anticipated annual Environmental Film Festival. One of the festival’s films, Gambling on Extinction, features EIA’s President and Co-Founder Allan Thornton...
- Shop on Amazon Smile and Donate to EIA
Shop on Amazon Smile and Donate to EIA
Amazon Smile is a website owned and operated by Amazon.com that allows online shoppers to select a charitable organization to receive 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases when they shop. Now that EIA is enrolled in the program, you can show your support...
- World Wildlife Day: The U.S. Moves to Crack Down On Wildlife Crime
World Wildlife Day: The U.S. Moves to Crack Down On Wildlife Crime
World Wildlife Day is a chance to appreciate the breathtaking variety of life on our planet; however, the headlines are often necessarily consumed by the global fight to save some of the most magnificent species from extinction...
- EPA Opens U.S. Market for Climate-Friendly Refrigerants
EPA Opens U.S. Market for Climate-Friendly Refrigerants
With the signature of Administrator Gina McCarthy this past Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave final approval of a rule that will allow the use of climate-friendly refrigerants in several end-uses, such as household refrigerators...
- Hack the Rainforest: Unique Event Connects Computer Hackers and Environmentalists in Peru
Hack the Rainforest: Unique Event Connects Computer Hackers and Environmentalists in Peru
Last week in the cloud forest of Tarapoto, Peru, EIA’s partner Digital Democracy hosted a “hackathon” bringing together hackers from around the world, as well as environmental monitors, and indigenous organizations from Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru...
- Obama-Modi Talk HFCs: Build Hope for a Deal
Obama-Modi Talk HFCs: Build Hope for a Deal
Over the past few years my friends and family in India have heard me talking again and again about “phasing out hydrofluorocarbons under the Montreal Protocol.” But saying this is like speaking another language to them. So when they heard President Obama...
- EPA Ups Enforcement of Refrigerant Leakage, Time to Cover HFCs
EPA Ups Enforcement of Refrigerant Leakage, Time to Cover HFCs
Leaking refrigerants are a major cause of climate change because they predominantly consist of two families of synthetic manmade chemicals called hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs)—both ozone depleting substances and super greenhouse gases (GHGs)—and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—powerful GHGs...
- Russian Supplier to Lumber Liquidators Convicted of Organized Crime
Russian Supplier to Lumber Liquidators Convicted of Organized Crime
The evidence against Lumber Liquidators, the U.S. wood products company currently under investigation by U.S. federal authorities for alleged violations of the U.S. Lacey Act, continues to accumulate. Senior executives of the Russian timber...
- NAMM Kicks Off, Musicians Join Nonprofits to Call for Legal Wood in Instruments
NAMM Kicks Off, Musicians Join Nonprofits to Call for Legal Wood in Instruments
This week, headliner musicians released a video to shed light on how illegal trade in precious woods, used in instruments and other wood products, devastates global forests. Driven by the connection between their music and the tonewoods which have...