Around The Web

Malcolm Turnbull announces $36.6m will be spent on ‘supporting farmers stopping runoff’ to improve water quality

Malcolm Turnbull has announced a $60m rescue package for the Great Barrier Reef which includes research on developing “resilient” coral, and paying farmers to pollute less.

The package, to be spent over 18 months, will also include an increased number of reef officers and vessels targeting crown of thorns starfish outbreaks.

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The Australian Government is boosting investment in the Great Barrier Reef by nearly $60 million over the next 18 months.

UK billionaire Sanjeev Gupta wants to use Holden facilities to build electric vehicles in Australia, underpinned by the 1GW of solar and storage planned for South Australia. Conservatives are horrified.

Rooftop solar was providing more capacity in South Australia than the old Northern coal generator at the height of Thursday's peak. Solar pushed the peak grid demand into early evening.

Thermal coal generators continue to have reliability issues that will only get worse. It's astonishing that the AEMC doesn’t seem to understand this issue one little bit.

AER report finds generators jacked up energy prices 100-fold, even when there was more than enough capacity. But don't expect regulators to do anything about it.

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright announced today that experienced energy and resources partner Gavin Scott will join the Brisbane office.

Josh Frydenberg claims South Australia is burning ‘80,000 litres of diesel an hour, just to keep the lights on’. With so many half-truths floating about in the so called ‘energy debate’, it’s worth unpacking this claim.

Victorian homebuilder Porter Davis has announced a partnership with Australia’s leading solar and battery provider, Bradford Energy, to equip knockdown rebuild homes with the Bradford Solar ChargePack, which includes the innovative Tesla Powerwall 2 home battery.

While the president’s rhetoric has raised hopes for renaissance of American coal, Trump’s policies have done little to revive the ailing industry.

We're off on a fossil dig in north-west Queensland; we go in search of yellow footed rock wallabies in South Australia's northern pastoral region; and check out the latest in chicken couture.

Blockchain is now helping to bring much-needed transparency to the global tuna industry, which has been prone to corruption, human slavery and unsustainable fishing practices. Candice Visser, PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong Quentin Hanich, Associate Professor, University of Wollongong Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Right geology and local consent are key in consultation due to be launched this week

The government is expected this week to begin a nationwide search for a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste dump to store highly radioactive material for thousands of years.

Britain has been trying for years to secure a site with the right geology and local communities which would volunteer to host a £12bn geological disposal facility (GDF), as a long-term solution for the most dangerous waste from nuclear power stations.

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• Fishing industry and environmentalists mull lawsuits
• EPA tried to delay report detailing chemicals’ harm to wildlife

Commercial fishermen and environmental groups could file lawsuits against the Trump administration, if it fails to follow a recommendation by one of its own agencies to protect salmon, sturgeon, orca and other endangered species in the Pacific north-west.

Related: Common pesticide can make migrating birds lose their way, research shows

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Private landowners present a rising threat to the millions of acres set aside for public use by blocking access to public lands

The Diamond Bar X is a postcard-perfect slice of Montana solitude. A former cattle ranch that’s been parceled up into sprawling home sites, it sits not far outside Augusta, a cowboy town beneath Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, where the Great Plains crash into majestic snow-peaked mountains to dramatic effect.

The area is prime habitat for elk and grizzlies, people are few, and its residents have easy access to countless miles of trails and streams on the adjacent public lands.

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Some in the car industry claim that modern diesel engines have been unfairly maligned.

Extinction prevention plan branded ‘deeply inadequate’ after environment department publishes paper without targets

The federal government’s latest strategy to protect Australian plants and animals facing extinction has been branded “deeply inadequate” and “a global embarrassment” by environment groups.

The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that a new 13-page document had quietly replaced the old 100-page biodiversity conservation strategy just before Christmas on the Department of Environment’s website.

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The Ka’apor tribe fight a daily battle in Brazil’s Maranhão state to protect their forests

Sairá Ka’apor patrolled one of the most murderous frontiers in the world, a remote and largely lawless region of the Brazilian Amazon where his indigenous community has fought for generations to protect their forest land.

Armed with clubs, bows and arrows, GPS trackers and crude guns, he and fellow members of Ka’apor Forest Guard drove off – and sometimes attacked – loggers who intruded into their territory, the 530,000-hectare Alto Turiaçu Indigenous Land, which is roughly three times the area of Greater London and contains about half of the Amazon forest left in Brazil’s northern Maranhão state. That vigilante role came to an end last April when Sairá was stabbed to death in Betel, a logging town close to Ka’apor territory.

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Friends of the Earth, National Trust and others voice ‘serious concerns’ that UK will not cooperate with EU

A coalition of leading environmental groups says there is a “significant risk” that British environmental protections will be reduced after Brexit, despite the government’s positive rhetoric.

Greener UK, which represents 13 campaign groups including WWF, National Trust, RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Green Alliance and the Wildlife Trusts, says there are “serious concerns” that the government will not cooperate with the European Union after Brexit on environmental issues which need international agreement. Although the environment secretary, Michael Gove, has made several recent announcements, such as the 5p levy on plastic bottles, Greener UK believes there may be a “lack of willpower to ensure high standards across the UK”.

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A 70-metre-high waste incinerator is being built next to the M5

Marooned on the flatlands between the Severn river and the Cotswolds escarpment, Stonehouse in Gloucestershire isn’t the sort of place to make the news. But, of late, outrage has been the dominant emotion here as construction traffic has brought what was a country village to a standstill. Blue plastic barriers proliferate, mobile traffic lights are set down apparently at random and workers clad in hi-vis saunter about with the swagger of the new sheriff in town.

While the slow crawl of traffic to and from the M5 is frustrating, it is the cause of the blockage that is more troubling. Stonehouse is being dug up to lay a cable to service the giant waste monster being built next to junction 12 of the M5, an edifice that its opponents warned would grow to four times the size of nearby Gloucester cathedral, a glorious testament to the grand folly of another age.

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