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Nominations are invited for species, ecological communities or key threatening processes to be considered for listing under national environment law during the assessment period starting 1 October 2018. ...

Timorese seasonal workers are picking mangoes in the territory; we visit a daylily farm; go on a wildlife boat tour; and Ivan McNally hangs up his butcher's apron aged 86.

Decision to end Downer EDI agreement follows Palaszczuk government’s blocking of federal loan for the Queensland project

Adani has scrapped a $2bn agreement to outsource the operation of its controversial Queensland coalmine after the state government killed off a taxpayer-funded loan.

The Indian miner says it will now develop and operate the Carmichael project on an owner-operator basis after reaching an agreement with contractor Downer EDI to abandon their deal, which was reportedly worth about $2bn.

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The new appointments bring experience and skills in finance and investment, energy markets and corporate governance skills and add to the geographical diversity to the Board.

The 110MW Wemen Solar Farm in Victoria and the 89MW Clermont Solar Farm in Queensland reached financial close yesterday, and will commence construction in January 2018.

18 December 1917 Their greens may be dark or even dingy, but when the rains sweep over or the snow melts upon them they shine as if polished

The sombre firs standing black against the leaden sky and the snow-sprinkled ground, the ivy clinging to the ancient bole, the big-leaved laurels and rhododendrons, and the hardy wayside hollies save the country from the monotony of leafless winter. Their greens may be dark or even dingy compared with those of spring, but they are really greens; when the rains sweep over, as they did yesterday, or the snow melts upon them they shine as if polished. The red berries are all the redder for the wet, and even the withered grass is invigorated by the showers which make us shiver.

Related: Holly: the festive berry

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The new chair of Newcastle Ports in Australia says there’s an urgent need to diversify the regional economy and the port’s business

Newcastle, the world’s largest coal export port, must “urgently” diversify its traffic, the port’s incoming chairman has said, warning that the “long-term outlook for coal is a threat to the port”.

The move has been received as a significant sign of the transition away from fossil fuels.

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Unclean air and run-off from agricultural fertilisers alter habitats while competitors threaten to overwhelm sensitive species

Nitrogen pollution in the air is devastating for many sensitive wild plants, which is why so much of the countryside is becoming a vast carpet of nettles, hogweed, hemlock and other rampant vegetation that feasts on nitrogen. In many places, these are running out of control.

Much has been written about the damage to human health from nitrogen oxides given off by traffic, but the damage to sensitive plants has gone largely unnoticed. Excessive nitrogen also comes from ammonia from fertilisers and manures, with much of the countryside awash with nitrates running off farmland.

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Australian government environmental funding has decreased by a third since 2013. At the same time, Australia is experiencing massive species loss as funding for the sector dries up. Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has scrapped an Obama-era rule requiring mining operations to prove they can clean up future pollution

When the Zortman Landusky gold and silver mine, located upstream from Montana’s enormous Fort Belknap reservation, went bankrupt in 1998, the cost of the cleanup fell on the US taxpayer. The costs keep growing.

“Toxic pollution from the Zortman Landusky mine has contaminated nearly a dozen streams in the Little Rocky mountains and harmed the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes that live downstream,” Bonnie Gestring, a staffer with Earthworks, a member of the Western Mining Action Network, said.

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Waitrose and MSC defend eco credentials of Shetland king scallops as conservation group calls for sales to be suspended

Waitrose has been urged to suspend sales of one of its premium products, an eco-certified king scallop from Shetland, which can sell heavily at Christmas.

The marine conservation campaign Open Seas challenged Waitrose after it raised concerns that the scallop fishery causes unjustifiable ecological damage because the shellfish are dredged from the seabed.

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In an era of environmental deregulation, groups like the American Petroleum Institute are focusing resources on the courts – and ‘time is on industry’s side’

In early October, 22 state and federal judges hailing from Honolulu to Albany got a crash course in scientific literacy and economics. The three-day symposium was billed as a way to help the judges better scrutinize evidence used to defend government regulations.

But the all-expenses-paid event hosted by George Mason University’s Law & Economics Center in Arlington, Virginia, served another purpose: it was the first of several seminars designed to promote “skepticism” of scientific evidence among likely candidates for the 140-plus federal judgeships Donald Trump will fill over the next four years.

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What do you give to the person who has everything? How about nothing?

At the risk of undermining the work of a certain Mr S Claus, here’s a sobering thought: while the US contains just 3.1% of the world’s children, its citizens buy in excess of 40% of the world’s toys.

Kids are effectively regarded as consumers in training and we know where that leads. According to US studies the average American home contains more than 300,000 items.

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South Australia government fast-tracks switch to 100% renewable energy by signing contract with SIMEC ZEN Energy while Aurora 150MW solar tower and molten salt storage project is built. It will help underpin Zen's own 1GW solar and storage plans.

Abused and disadvantaged mothers and daughters are being honed into a squad of sharpshooters to save wildlife in the Zambezi valley

The black metal of the AR-15 rifle has worn silvery and shiny in parts after years of use. More manageable than an AK-47 in close-quarter combat, the weapon is precise enough to bring down an enemy target at 500 metres. Used for decades by anti-poaching units throughout Africa, today this gun is not carried by a typical swaggering male field ranger; this one is cradled securely and proficiently by Vimbai Kumire. “This job is not meant just for men,” she says, “but for everyone who is fit and strong.”

Kumire is a 32-year-old single mother whose husband ran off with a younger woman while she was pregnant with her second child. She is practising setting up an ambush in the early morning in Zimbabwe’s lower Zambezi Valley, nestling deep into the green undergrowth like a dappled shadow.

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Zimbabwe’s Anti-Poaching Success: In between nursing, women hold the front line.

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With UN funds being cut this month, conservationists call for last-ditch effort to save animal which clings on only in Iran

Conservationists have warned that the Asiatic cheetah is on the threshold of extinction following a UN decision to pull funding from conservation efforts to protect it.

Fewer than 50 of the critically endangered carnivores are thought to be left in the wild – all of them in Iran – and scientists fear that without urgent intervention there is little chance of saving one of the planet’s most distinctive and graceful hunters.

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Scientists install sensors at the Kennedy Space Center that would normally be used to monitor volcanoes.

The renowned scientist behind BBC Two's The Great Egg Race died on Friday, his family says.

South Oakley Inclosure, New Forest Others come here for exercise, we head off the track into a silence broken only by the scolding of blackbirds

There’s a stillness in the air, though we share this Inclosure’s gravelled track near Burley with others. A runner passes us on his way out. We’ve not gone far before we have to stand aside to allow two riders to pass on ambling ponies.

A cyclist speeds by, head down, and later we greet a family group enjoying a walk. Like so many of the people who come into the New Forest, their purpose is primarily exercise.

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