Mangroves should not be used as sewage disposal sites. It is killing them mangroves grow in highly saline, coastal waters, representing a very unique ecosystem. According to an estimate, a mangrove forest supports 100 species of plants and about 500 species of animals, birds and fish. These forests also act as filters for nutrients from water; the fine soil sediments act as sinks for a

With their boundless vistas of turquoise water framed by swaying coconut palms, the Carteret Islands northeast of the Papua New Guinea mainland might seem the idyllic spot to be a castaway.

Stuart Beck, the permanent representative for Palau at the United Nations, in 2005.

A rare white tiger mauled and killed a New Zealand zoo keeper Wednesday, local media said.

The attack occurred when two keepers went inside to clean the tiger's cage at the Zion Wildlife Gardens in the city of Whangarei, about 200 km (124 miles) north of Auckland.

Many governments are ignoring alien invasive species such as weeds or rats that may be causing $1.4 trillion damage a year to the world economy, the head of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said on Friday.

The list of birds threatened with extinction has grown fractionally; a new sign that governments are failing to meet a 2010 global conservation goal, an annual review of birds showed on Thursday.

The world faces disputes over the seabed from the South China Sea to the North Pole at a May 13 UN deadline for claims meant as a milestone towards the final fixing of maritime boundaries.

Of all the potential global disasters that we periodically list and examine, only one has threatened repeatedly to become a reality: the flu, a variety of which is now spreading quickly across the world. A global flu epidemic seems a feeble threat compared to an asteroid impact or a nuclear holocaust, which nobody has encountered.

When millions of people started dying around the world in 1918, doctors and scientists hadn't a clue what was happening. As the epidemic spread, people blamed it on everything from tiny plants to old dusty books.

Then again, they couldn't have known because the influenza virus was only identified in 1933, by a British research team.

But how times have changed.