PLANET IN PERIL

The Winnipeg Free Press - 01/18/2012 WINNIPEG - A United Nations organization will soon have before it a bid to designate a huge tract of boreal forest along the Manitoba-Ontario boundaries as a world heritage site. Read more here.

Common Dreams Jan 16-'12 Study: Rising CO2 affecting brains, central nervous systems of sea fish. Details here.

Grist - Jan 13-2012 Claire Robinson "We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point," said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board… Details here. Honeybees photo by PLT Please also read: "Scientists Link Mass Death of British Bees to Farm Pesticides

Dear Editor, I think the Government of Manitoba has some explaining to do.  With Lake Winnipeg's water quality getting progressively worse through the years, why has Premier Selinger done away with the Ministry of Water Stewardship? Former Premier Gary Doer created the Department almost a decade ago. Since then, the government has bragged about it being "the first in Canada," suggesting it was needed to deal with mounting problems such as floods, agricultural and industrial impacts, eutrophication, excessive algae bloom, climate change and a growing population.  Then, with the stroke of a pen last week, the Premier has reduced Water Stewardship to a branch of the Department of Conservation. Why? It seems to me that the stewardship of Manitoba waters was the beginning of a life line for the survival of Lake Winnipeg. Now it has been taken away. At no time in Manitoba's history has there been such a need for a Department of Water Stewardship as the

Jan 11, 2012 Reuters Canada WINNIPEG, Manitoba - A weed resistant to a widely used chemical to protect crops has spread for the first time to Western Canada, the country's grain and canola belt. Read more here.   Kochia, Kochia scoparia.   Photo by Jack Kelly Clark.

The Canadian Press - 01/13/2012 MONTREAL - A group led by a former Bloc Quebecois MP is taking the Canadian government to court in the hope of overturning Ottawa's decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Read more.