The National Geographic website contains plenty of wonderful reports and pictures. This makes the website well worth visiting regularly. The website also now contains two new unhappy lists. One is the ten most polluted places in the world: La Oroya (Peru), Noril’sk (Russia), Linfen (China), Sukinda (India), Chernobyl (Ukraine), Kabwe (Zambia), Dzerzhinsk (Russia), Vapi (India) and Sumgayit (Azerbaijan)
The abandoned lead mines in Kabwe
It is all too easy to see that pollution has occurred somewhere else (preferably far away) and to forget that pollution has occurs as part of larger global system where even those of us in unpolluted countries are responsible and will be affected by the consequences.
The second list is the announcement of the most endangered species of 2007. These are the Western Lowland Gorilla, Chinese river dolphin, Egyptian vulture, Santa Catalina Island rattlesnake, Banggai cardinal fish, Gharial and Coral. This list is the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There website is another which is well worth visiting both for their images and the sobering information.
Banggai cardinal fish