This year's annual environment issue will be printed on wheat straw. It's our message to magazine publishers and pulp-producers alike, that adding agricultural waste to pulp mix can offer farmers a new source of revenue and cut down on the demand of pulp from our boreal forests.

Also, writer Jeff Hull heads into B.C.'s Flathead River Valley and investigates the American discontent with a coal mine proposal near the Montana border. Writer Curtis Gillespie heads to Alberta's Tar Sands to discover what oil companies can do to preserve the area while extracting the coveted oil below. We also celebrate the work of biologists John Smol and Jules Blais, the 2008 Environmental Scientists of the year. PLUS: a pictorial of the new Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area.