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The maps featured in the CEC's North American Environmental Atlas depicts land cover changes in North America's forests, prairies, deserts and cities, using satellite images from 2005 and 2010. These changes can be attributed to forest fires, insect infestation, urban sprawl and other natural or human-caused events. Produced by the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS), a trinational collaborative effort through by the CEC, these maps and accompanying data can be used to address issues such as climate change, carbon sequestration, biodiversity loss, and changes in ecosystem structure and function.

Canada "has the dubious honor of being the only CDI country with an environment score which has gone down since we first calculated the CDI [in 2003]," the report said. "This reflects rising fossil fuel production and its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty governing the emissions of heat-trapping gasses. Canada has dropped below the U.S. into bottom place on the environment component."

Canada dropped from 12th place last year and did far worse in the environmental protection category, where it ranked 27th. Every other country made progress in this area except Canada, the centre said in a report on the rankings.

"There is an opportunity to tell the personal story about how people along the line feel," van Waarden says about his motivation to capture stories from a cross section of Canadians stretching from "the fisherman on Grand Manan Island to the farmer in Saskatchewan."

Energy East is a massive project proposed by TransCanada Corp. to bring 1.1 million barrels a day of western oil to eastern markets along a 4,600-kilometre pipeline. It involves converting a 40 year old existing gas pipeline, the development of 72 new pumping stations along the route and new pipelines to connect oil sands in Alberta to Quebec City and then on to St. John, N.B.

"The oil sands are already Canada's fastest-growing source of carbon pollution and the Energy East pipeline would help to accelerate production. Any regulatory review should include not only the impact of the pipeline itself, but also the impact of producing the crude that would flow through it." (Clare Demerse, Federal Policy Director, Pembina Institute)

The theme for the United Nations World Water Day 2014 is water and energy – a theme that hits home for Manitobans. The upcoming public hearings about regulation of Lake Winnipeg, and the current and expanding hydroelectric infrastructure on the Nelson River in northern Manitoba, are examples of developments that affect Manitoba's vast freshwater system. Manitobans have the responsibility, as the lucky stewards of this immense watershed, to educate themselves about risks to their waters, to voice their concerns to regulatory and governmental bodies, and to bring about positive change for the future.

International regulatory protection of the high Arctic would result in preservation of innumerable species of fish, marine mammals, and threatened Arctic iconic species such as polar bears and barren ground caribou. Establishing appropriate regulatory mechanisms to control environmental degradation caused by fishing fleets, mining and oil companies would be necessary under the European Union Arctic Strategy.

To properly implement such a groundbreaking strategy, all countries sharing Arctic territory must agree to commit – something that has yet to happen.

"As the European Union sets an impressive precedent for Arctic protection, Canada continues to push forward its pro-business and pro-oil agenda as chair of the Arctic Council," said Greenpeace Canada spokesperson Farrah Khan in a March 12 news release. "To successfully prevent devastating oil spills and the depletion of fish stocks that could destroy the livelihoods of millions, measures such as those proposed by the European Parliament need to be reflected in Canadian law as well as the laws of all Arctic states."

Source: Global Environment Facility

A joint effort to reverse food insecurity, over farming and overgrazing is underway, and attempts to mitigate the effects of climate change and extreme weather are in the making. The effects of land degradation are most severe in Sub-Saharan Africa, where roughly 500 million people are trying to make a living from land subjected to increasing desertification – a process where extreme nutrient loss in soil results in a desert-like wasteland.

Jean-Marc Sinnassamy, senior environmental specialist with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), looks at this union of countries as a unique opportunity to unite governments on a strong political base. Sinnassamy stated, "Here, we saw political leaders, heads of state, ministers in different countries wanting to work on common environmental issues and wanting to tackle land degradation issues together."

However, over the last 15 years, the increase in the number of 'nuisance' bear sightings has brought this issue back. A trap and relocate program initiated by the Ontario government to deal with problem bears coming into contact with humans had a 70% success rate, however this program ended in 2012. The spring hunt is proposed as being a financially beneficial solution to the 'nuisance' bear problem. Scientific studies argue reopening the hunt will not make any substantial difference in preventing bears from approaching human.

The government of Manitoba allows both spring and fall season to be open to black bear hunting, with a limit of one adult bear per person per year. Female bears with cubs cannot be killed at any time of the year.

Source: Common Dreams

"The three CFCs are being destroyed very slowly in the atmosphere – so even if emissions were to stop immediately, they will still be around for many decades to come", stated lead author Dr. Johannes Laube from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences.

Studies lead the scientists to predict that roughly 74,000 tonnes of all four chemicals combined were released before 2012 and were not present in the atmosphere before the 1960's. This leads to the assumption the chemicals are manmade. The sources of the chemicals have not yet been identified.

"We don't know where the new gases are being emitted from and this should be investigated. Possible sources include feedstock chemicals for insecticide production and solvents for cleaning electronic components." said Dr. Laube.

Charges the company faces include: Combustion at the flare stack; release of an unapproved substance; release of a substance causing a significant adverse effect; failure to report approval contraventions; and failing to report to and providing misleading information to the director and the Fort McKay First Nation. Although there was no indication of how much gas released, a news release by the Alberta government stated that the gas release was picked up by air-monitoring equipment and confirmed through complaints from Fort McMurray residents.

With a smell akin to rotten eggs, hydrogen sulphide at low concentrations can cause dizziness, headaches, irritated respiratory pathways and nausea. Higher concentrations, however, cause sleepiness, blurred vision or death from respiratory failure.

Zoe Addington, Canadian Natural Resources spokeswoman, stated via email, "Canadian Natural takes theses charges very seriously. Because of legal proceeding, we are not commenting at this time."

The Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations, whose herring-roe fishery has been closed since 2006, went to court last month seeking the injunction. The ruling has prompted the Haida First Nation to threaten similar court action. The First Nations say the fisheries should not be opened because they have not recovered enough to allow safe harvesting.

The decision came after an internal memo revealed Fisheries Minister Gail Shea overruled recommendations of scientists in her own department. The DFO memo revealed that department experts had recommended maintaining the herring fisheries closure for the 2014 season, and that Shea had nonetheless recommended opening the fishery in three disputed areas.

The memorandum to the minister, written by the federal herring co-ordinator in Vancouver, and signed by David Bevan, the DFO associate deputy minister, was based on recommendations of scientists and B.C. herring managers.

Millions of litres of water are extracted every day from community watersheds across Canada to fuel this booming industry. There is currently no federal oversight to keep the industry in check, or to protect the health of people and our drinking water.

The recent report, "Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Stress", shows the severity of the problem. Alberta and B.C. are among eight North American regions examined in the study by Ceres, a U.S.-based nonprofit advocating for sustainability leadership.

One of the most disturbing findings is that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is using enormous amounts of water in areas that are short on water. The report notes close to half the oil and gas wells recently fracked in the U.S. "are in regions with high or extremely high water stress" and more than 55 per cent are in areas experiencing drought.

Fracking is all about the short term profit and offers no comfort for the future borrowed from the coming generations. It is time to ban fracking in Canada.

Sign the Petition here: Demand a Ban on Fracking in Canada

The draft report came after a five-day meeting in Japan and is the second volume in a long-awaited trilogy by the IPCC in its first overview of the causes and effects of global warming, and options for dealing with it, since 2007. In the first volume of the three-part review, the IPCC said it was more certain than ever that humans were the cause of global warming and predicted temperatures would rise another 0.3 to 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5-8.6 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.

Ian Bruce, science and policy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver, said it is clear that Canada is more vulnerable to some of the effects of climate change, and that global warming is amplified at the north and south poles. That's the bad news, he said.

"The good news is that the report shows that our future will not be determined by chance but (by) choices we make," said Bruce. "So we have a choice to reduce carbon emissions. The report says it is still possible that we can escape the worst impacts of climate change if we make some important changes."