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Exclusive: Helene Marsh backs calls for the creation of national scientific monitoring system to help protect wildlife

A senior adviser to the federal government on threatened species has backed calls for the creation of a national scientific monitoring system after the bushfire crisis to help fix Australia’s “very uneven” record in protecting endangered wildlife.

Helene Marsh, chair of the national threatened species scientific committee and an emeritus professor of environmental science at James Cook University, said the scale of the ecological tragedy had made Australians more aware of the risks facing the country’s unique animals and plants and provided an opportunity to improve conservation.

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Boris Johnson’s partner and animal rights activist was briefed by Badger Trust weeks before the policy was changed

The influence exerted on the prime minister by his partner, Carrie Symonds, will be explored in court after permission was granted last week for a judicial review into how the government came to pull a cull on badgers in Derbyshire.

The case could embarrass Boris Johnson and raise questions about the government’s willingness to listen to its advisers when formulating policy.

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New research warns that ‘blue acceleration’ – a global goldrush to claim the ocean floor – is already impacting on the environment.

The scaly-foot snail is one of Earth’s strangest creatures. It lives more than 2,300 metres below the surface of the sea on a trio of deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Here it has evolved a remarkable form of protection against the crushing, grim conditions found at these Stygian depths. It grows a shell made of iron.

Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum – which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defence department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour.

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In Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve thousands of saplings have been planted as an alternative to profits from illegal gold mining

The villagers walk down the grassy landing strip, past the wooden hut housing the health post and into the thick forest, pointing out the seedlings they planted along the way. For these Ye’kwana indigenous men, the skinny saplings, less than a metre high, aren’t just baby cacao trees but green shoots of hope in a land scarred by the violence, pollution and destruction wrought by illegal gold prospecting. That hope is chocolate.

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Young demonstrators aim to make the climate crisis a central issue of the presidential campaign

Organizers in the youth climate movement plan an avalanche of activities beginning next week, determined to make the future of the climate the major issue of the 2020 election.

Capitalizing on turnout in the September climate strikes, when 6 million people worldwide turned out to demand urgent action to address the escalating ecological emergency, young US organizers are making the leap from mobilization to demands. They’re planning widespread voter activation in the 2020 US presidential election as well as direct action targeting the fossil fuel industry and the banks and politicians that enable it.

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New aerial footage from Kosciuszko national park reveals horrific fire damage to the landscape. There are also fears that the huge number of feral horses that remain are pushing bushfire-affected threatened species closer to extinction. 'The horses are destroying the refuges of the endangered plants and animals in the mountains', says Prof Jamie Pittock from the Australian National University. 'It's a crisis because the fire has burnt a lot of the habitats and we need to protect what remains'

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It is one of Europe's "best wildlife secrets" and home to unique and unusual species.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

RGGI’s upcoming programme review could be delayed as member states discuss the potential expansion of the power sector ETS and regulators also craft a new cap-and-trade scheme to cover fuel sector emissions across the region, regulatory sources said.

A summary of legislative and regulatory action on carbon pricing and clean energy at the US subnational and federal level taken this week, including developments in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, California, and Arizona.

Experts call for sweeping policy changes and warn against Heathrow expansion

Expanding Heathrow airport is unlikely to be compatible with the UK’s target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, leading scientists have said, adding that government policies are lacking in many other key areas from home insulation and transport to carbon capturing.

Achieving the net zero goal will require sweeping policy changes, but scientists are concerned that little has so far been forthcoming from ministers.

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The pick of the best flora and fauna photos from around the world, including white-tailed eagles and a detained lion cub

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Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades

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A private company tracing methane emissions is building a global map of the gas in Earth's atmosphere.

Regulation breaches and fewer, larger slaughterhouses have led to growing numbers of animals travelling further to slaughter

• High risk of injuries in Denmark’s live piglet export trade, audit warns
  

The live animal export trade has ballooned in Europe while the commission fails to enforce its own regulations, MEPs have told the Guardian.

A second attempt to set up an inquiry committee to look into the handling of the problem is now underway, after an earlier proposal was dismissed in 2018.

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Cheaper labour and welfare costs have driven animal exports from Denmark to Poland, but critics fear corners are being cut

• ‘Something is wrong’: MEPs say EU is failing to regulate live animal exports
  

The Danish government has been labelled “unsatisfactory” and “ineffective” in an audit of its ballooning piglet trade published today.

In 2008 3.2 million live pigs were exported from Denmark; by 2018 that number had risen to 9.6 million. But the government continued to carry out just 100 checks a year up until 2018, according to the audit, with just 0.4% of transports being checked.

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Judges say greater leniency should be shown in cases of non-violent civil disobedience

A fracking protester’s sentence has been reduced by the court of appeal, which said greater leniency should be shown in convictions for non-violent civil disobedience.

Katrina Lawrie, 41, was found guilty of contempt of court in June last year for breaching an injunction that banned trespassers blocking access to the energy firm Cuadrilla’s site on Preston New Road in Lancashire.

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EUA prices were poised to end Friday more than a euro below last week's close, as a weak auction stifled prospects of a recovery while traders remain preoccupied with when the UK will finally be able to sell its backdated units.

Switzerland has announced dates for its first carbon allowance auction since linking to the EU ETS, but it warned that the sale could be cancelled if the current trend of excessively low clearing prices continues.

Brown ants herd and milk giant pale aphids, building barns for them from beetle exoskeleton

Britain has a new farmed animal, which is kept in barns, milked and moved between high and low pastures – but not by humans.

The giant pale aphid, Stomaphis wojciechowskii, has lived undiscovered for thousands of years on English oak trees, where it has been looked after by brown ants.

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