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Historian Grace Karskens
The 'best' outcome? How the marine park plans divided scientists and conservationists
Some say the Coalition’s marine management plans are too compromised; others say some protection is better than none. But how did it come to this?
• Jessica Meeuwig: The government’s marine park plans are diabolical for ocean protection
For those in Australia’s marine science and conservation community, a dream of having a network of marine parks around the continent has been 20 years in the making.
The story is one of heartbreak, near misses and painful compromise and, in the view of some, a false dichotomy of sacrifice between science and economic and political interests.
Continue reading...Mass stranding in Australia claims more than 130 whales – video
More than 130 whales have died after being washed up on a beach in Western Australia. Veterinarians and volunteers are racing to save more than a dozen other short-finned pilot whales. Authorities have warned people to stay away from the beach in Hamelin Bay as the dead and dying animals could attract sharks
Continue reading...Keep off our land, indigenous women tell Ecuador's president
Women’s movement demand an end to unrestricted oil drilling and mining on indigenous lands and action on violence against land defenders in first meeting with president Lenin Moreno
Amazon indigenous women leaders have told Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno to limit oil drilling and mining in their territories and combat the sexual violence and death threats they claim accompany the industries.
The delegation of women dressed in traditional tunics and with intricately painted faces were granted a meeting with Moreno after nearly 100 of them camped in Quito’s central plaza in front of the Carondelet government palace for five days, earlier this month.
Continue reading...Biodiversity loss, climate litigation and death of a rhino – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
A thirsty wolf, an albatross chick and a family of capybaras are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...The radical otherness of birds: Jonathan Franzen on why they matter
Birds are not just diverse, vivid and extraordinary. They can also save our souls – let’s protect them
For most of my life, I didn’t pay attention to birds. Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that’s been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it’s a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska. When someone asks me why birds are so important to me, all I can do is sigh and shake my head, as if I’ve been asked to explain why I love my brothers. And yet the question is a fair one: why do birds matter?
My answer might begin with the vast scale of the avian domain. If you could see every bird in the world, you’d see the whole world. Things with feathers can be found in every corner of every ocean and in land habitats so bleak that they’re habitats for nothing else. Grey gulls raise their chicks in Chile’s Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth.
Continue reading...Destruction of nature as dangerous as climate change, scientists warn
Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UN-backed biodiversity study reveals
Human destruction of nature is rapidly eroding the world’s capacity to provide food, water and security to billions of people, according to the most comprehensive biodiversity study in more than a decade.
Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday.
Continue reading...EU in 'state of denial' over destructive impact of farming on wildlife
EU’s subsidy system, that benefits big farming rather than sustainability, needs to change to prevent ongoing collapse in birds and insect numbers, warn green groups
Europe’s crisis of collapsing bird and insect numbers will worsen further over the next decade because the EU is in a “state of denial” over destructive farming practices, environmental groups are warning.
Continue reading...In court, Big Oil rejected climate denial | Dana Nuccitelli
If even oil companies accept human-caused global warming, why doesn’t everybody?
In a California court case this week, Judge William Alsup asked the two sides to provide him a climate science tutorial.
The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland. They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming. Chevron’s lawyer presented the science for the defense, and most notably, began by explicitly accepting the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, saying:
Continue reading...The Wrap: White South African farmers, Cambridge Analytica and private nature reserves
Why whales strand themselves
Scientists witness first reported case of killer-whale infanticide
‘His blubber shook like Jell-o,’ says researcher of the attack on newborn orca by unrelated 32-year-old male
Scientists in the Canadian province of British Columbia have documented what is believed to be the first reported case of an orca whale killing an infant of the same species.
“We knew right away that this was a remarkable event,” said Jared Towers, a Cetacean researcher with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, of the encounter he and two colleagues witnessed in December 2016.
Continue reading...Lignite mining: Greece’s dirty secret - in pictures
Mining for lignite - or brown coal - in Greece is a huge industry. Together with Germany and Poland, the country accounts for more than one-third of the world’s coal production. But for residents of villages in the extraction areas of West Macedonia, it has many impacts, from displacement to health problems. Photographs and research by Anna Pantelia
Thick dust suspended in the atmosphere makes it hard to see the sun over Ptolemaida, a city 500 kilometres north-west of Athens in the West Macedonia region, known for its brown coal (lignite) mines and power stations.
Kostas works as a guard for the state-owned Public Power Corporation (PPC), like his father before him. “My father died of cancer when I was 12,” he says. “Four other men from his shift lost their lives from cancer.”
Continue reading...Whales in mass stranding on Western Australia beach
More than 130 whales die in mass stranding in Western Australia
Rescue operation under way to save 15 beached whales in Hamelin Bay near Augusta on state’s south-west coast
More than 150 whales have washed ashore in Western Australia, of which about 75 have died.
A rescue operation is under way in Hamelin Bay, near the town of Augusta on the state’s south-western tip, with volunteers and vets trying to keep the surviving short-finned pilot whales alive before deciding when to herd them out to sea. About 50 of the whales are on the beach and 25 are in the shallows.
Continue reading...Not getting a social licence to operate can be a costly mistake, as coal seam gas firms have found
How does Marshall battery plan stack up with Tesla-Weatherill plan?
Battery storage booming, but even Tesla struggling to cash in
Australia’s energy focus should be on the prize, not the rules
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