Around The Web

Googong Foreshores Cultural and Geodiversity Area in the Canberra/Queanbeyan region has become our newest Commonwealth Heritage place, preserving and telling the story of our pastoral, Aboriginal, geological and natural history.

Globally it's thought that shark populations and diversity are in decline, as scientists start the first systematic survey of sharks and rays in the Indo-Pacific.

If warmer weather is your sign to reach for the pesticide, think again. From better soil to your own army of beneficial bugs, here are five reasons to put down the insect spray. Lizzy Lowe, Postdoctoral fellow, Macquarie University Cameron Webb, Clinical Lecturer and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney Kate Umbers, Lecturer in Zoology, Western Sydney University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Test drilling by Third Energy expected to get go-ahead soon at Kirby Misperton, the first in UK since 2011

For the past year, Leigh Coghill has devoted her life to one thing – trying to stop the gas exploration company Third Energy from fracking on the outskirts of a tiny village in North Yorkshire. The 26-year-old from Wolverhampton, who “married into Yorkshire”, quit her job working for York council in November last year, deciding to devote herself to the cause.

Since September, when Third Energy started preparing the site at Kirby Misperton for drilling, she has been one of a group of around forty Ryedale locals to have spent almost every day protesting next to the gates to the well, holding banners and placards, and watching in dismay as lorries trundle in.

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Halting dangerous global warming means putting the landmark Paris agreement into practice – without the US – and tackling the divisive issue of compensation

The world’s nations are meeting for the 23rd annual “conference of the parties” (COP) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which aims to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”, ie halt global warming. It is taking place in Bonn, Germany from 6-17 November.

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US plans to promote coal as a solution to climate change at a key UN meeting rile environmentalists.

Is it good news or bad when environment-friendly brands are bought out by major industry players?

At a recent event held by the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia I detected a sheepish air. Nothing to do with eco wool, but rumours that the company was about to surpass a $1bn turnover.

I'd rather market share went to Patagonia than to brands without discernible values

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Poultry owner claims his new approach has the highest welfare standards and lowest cost to environment

There’s the much-criticised battery hen egg, and then the pricier organic and free-range varieties. But for the truly ethically committed, how about the carbon-neutral egg, laid in what has been billed as the world’s most environmentally friendly farm?

Dutch stores are now selling so-called “Kipster eggs” laid at a shiny new farm near the south-eastern city of Venray. “Kip” means chicken in Dutch, “ster” means star, and it’s no coincidence the name rhymes with hipster. The intention is to rethink the place of animals in the food chain, according to Ruud Zanders, the poultry farmer and university lecturer behind the farm, which includes a visitor centre, corporate meeting room and even a free cappuccino machine.

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The ability of national parks to protect our natural heritage is being eroded, Carolyn Pettigrew says.

A busload of indigenous leaders have been crossing Europe to highlight their cause before the start of UN climate talks in Bonn

Of the many thousands of participants at the Bonn climate conference which begins on 6 November, there will arguably be none who come with as much hope, courage and anger as the busload of indigenous leaders who have been criss-crossing Europe over the past two weeks, on their way to the former German capital.

The 20 activists on the tour represent forest communities that have been marginalised over centuries but are now increasingly recognised as important actors against climate change through their protection of carbon sinks.

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A spokesman says climate is "always changing" after a report ties global warming to human activity.

Up to 80% of Kimberley’s inshore reef bleached in El Niño heatwave of 2016, with about 29% of the coral at Rottnest, off Perth, also affected

Up to 80% of coral in inshore reefs in the Kimberley was bleached during the global mass bleaching event that also affected 93% of the Great Barrier Reef in the summer of 2016-2016, according to new research.

Led by scientists from the University of Western Australia and published in Scientific Reports this week, the research found between 57% and 80% of corals in the Kimberley, particularly at Montgomery Reef, the largest inshore coral reef in Australia, were bleached in April 2016.

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Castlemartin, Pembrokeshire To see how many features I once climbed have been battered away by wave and wind is a salutary lesson in human ambition

Meadowsweet still flowered along lanes through an obscenity of tank ranges; grasses riffled and glistened in the verges; far offshore, Lundy dipped in and out of view. Nowhere’s better in stormy weather than south Pembrokeshire’s Castlemartin peninsula. Here the elemental interplay of land and sea is slow-motion spectator sport of the utmost drama.

I was there when Storm Ophelia was at her raging height, to watch sculpting forces of weather at work on massively bedded, malleable limestone. In my decades as a rock climber, pioneering routes on this coast obsessed me. To look east from the Green Bridge of Wales and see how many of the features I had climbed have been battered away by wave and wind is a salutary lesson in human ambition.

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Possum, tawny frogmouth, platypus, turtle, quoll, endangered devil and raven. No animal is immune to death on Tasmanian roads where 32 animals die every hour. This episode of Off Track has been selected from the archives.

Rebecca Jones went back in time to see how farmers dealt with drought in Australia.

Major report by government agencies goes against senior members of Trump administration and finds evidence of global warming stronger than ever

A comprehensive review by 13 US federal agencies concludes that evidence of global warming is stronger than ever and that more than 90% of it has been caused by humans.

The conclusion contradicts a favorite talking point of senior members of the Trump administration.

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The Norwegian island of Kvaløya is now one of the few places in Europe to see a pod of killer whales.

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

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Millions of fruit bats, migrating cranes and a new species of orangutan are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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A new study shows that the biological effects of two ecosystem changes can be greater than their individual impacts

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

A lot. At least that’s what I learned after reading a very recent paper out in the journal Global Climate Change. The article, “Ocean acidification alters zooplankton communities and increases top-down pressure of a cubazoan predator,” was authored by an international team of scientists – the paper looks at impacts of climate change on life in the world’s oceans.

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