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Former prime minister Tony Abbott says climate change activism is like a post-Christian religion, but is he right according to his own Catholic faith? Join our guests for a lively conversation about the role religion plays in environmental activism.

The Antiquities Act has been used to preserve some of America’s beloved lands and landmarks but it is facing assault from Trump and Congress

One-hundred-eleven years and a few months ago, Theodore Roosevelt signed the landmark law that helped cement his place as America’s conservation president.

Related: National park ban saved 2m plastic bottles – and still Trump reversed it

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Insects have triumphed for hundreds of millions of years in every habitat but the ocean. Their success is unparalleled, which makes their disappearance all the more alarming

Thirty-five years ago an American biologist Terry Erwin conducted an experiment to count insect species. Using an insecticide “fog”, he managed to extract all the small living things in the canopies of 19 individuals of one species of tropical tree, Luehea seemannii, in the rainforest of Panama. He recorded about 1,200 separate species, nearly all of them coleoptera (beetles) and many new to science; and he estimated that 163 of these would be found on Luehea seemannii only.

He calculated that as there are about 50,000 species of tropical tree, if that figure of 163 was typical for all the other trees, there would be more than eight million species, just of beetles, in the tropical rainforest canopy; and as beetles make up about 40% of all the arthropods, the grouping that contains the insects and the other creepy-crawlies from spiders to millipedes, the total number of such species in the canopy might be 20 million; and as he estimated the canopy fauna to be separate from, and twice as rich as, the forest floor, for the tropical forest as a whole the number of species might be 30 million.

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Chicken eyes are stranger than you think: they can look up and down at the same time. Maggie J. Watson, Postdoctoral Researcher in Ecology, Conservation and Parasitology, Charles Sturt University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Bramshaw Telegraph, New Forest The heather is fading but there are so many fallen trees to explore, each with its diverse community of fungi

Without doubt, 200 years ago our walk would have made a slow start. We would have been watching with fascination the sliding shutters of the new signalling station, constructed as part of the chain linking Plymouth with London and Portsmouth. Skilful combination of its six panels could transmit messages at astonishing speed. Today only the place name, Bramshaw Telegraph, is left to remind us what once stood here.

Patches of wire wool – actually the lichen Cladonia portentosa – lighten up the fading hues of the heathers as we cross Studley Head. A deeply rutted track forewarns of forestry work ahead. A notice as we enter the woodland confirms this and urges caution: thinning is under way again in the Island Thorns Inclosure.

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Country’s treasured avian species puff up their plumage as nation votes on who rules the roost

Bird of the Year leaderboard – check the pecking order

First there was the “Jacinda effect” and a government to cobble together. Then came the mania for the jade Kākāriki, the shining cuckoo and the stern Ruru.

New Zealand’s Bird of the Year Competition has kicked off, and it has galvanised voters with the same intensity as the recent election. Now in its 13th year, the poll pits the country’s rare and endangered birds against one another: the cheeky Kea versus the shy Kiwi, the dowdy Bar Tailed Godwit against the alluring Hihi.

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It’s the final countdown to New Zealand’s Bird of the Year award, the annual contest for the most popular bird in Aotearoa. Here you can see the current leader in the contest, updated hourly

• Vote for your favourite bird here – voting finishes Monday 23 October, 5pm New Zealand time
• Bird photographs and descriptions courtesy Forest & Bird

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Why one of the Earth's most remote places is the preferred place to dump space junk.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance says proposed guarantee could be ‘template for policy makers worldwide’

The Turnbull government’s proposed national energy guarantee has been given enthusiastic support by the renewable energy analysis firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which has described the concept as “innovative and elegant” and said it could be “a template for policy makers worldwide”.

Earlier this week Malcolm Turnbull persuaded the Coalition to support an energy policy that includes measures intended to drive down emissions (the “emissions guarantee”) and ensure reliability of the grid (the “reliability guarantee”).

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We sharpen up the knives for a home butchering session; country kids become super sleuths at a science camp; and Lyn Wearing hand-rears poddy lambs on Elabe Station.

In Sussex scientists have found that insecticide use has stabilised over the past two decades with an associated stabilisation of some insect groups, write Dr Julie Ewald and Prof John Holland of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. Plus Judith Wright says we should let verges grow

It is with great interest that we read about the long-term decline in the biomass of flying insects on German protected areas (Scientists tell of alarm at huge fall in flying insects, 19 October).

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) carries out two long-term surveys of insects on farmland in England – the Sussex Study (1970 to present) and at our demonstration farm in Loddington (1992 to present).

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What's it like to live somewhere like Beijing, where you can even see pollution with the naked eye?

The week’s top environment news stories and green events

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Migratory birds, rutting stags and leaping salmon are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Roads minister Jesse Norman says government could push councils to do more to fight pollution and inactive living

The UK government could potentially consider providing subsidies for electric bicycles and electric cars as part of a concerted policy effort to get more people cycling, the roads minister, Jesse Norman, has said.

With the UK facing health crises from pollution and inactive living, other plans could include using electric cargo bikes to deliver packages from internet retailers rather than vans, Norman told the Guardian.

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Researchers investigate how dogs change their expressions in response to their owners.

Vets in Colombia are nursing a tiny spider monkey back to health.

The National Energy Guarantee proposal seems geared towards locking in the status quo rather than driving the much-needed energy transition. Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National University Salim Mazouz, Research Associate, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Mr Clarke will replace Dr Anthony (Tony) Marxsen, who is retiring from the Board following the 2017 Annual General Meeting in November.

Big Moor, Derbyshire The stag ignores the passing lorries but isn’t ready for a photographic closeup

Running south from the old Barbrook reservoir, I found myself struggling against the strong south-westerly that had kept temperatures unusually high for several days and delayed wintering thrushes returning to the moors. The arrival of fieldfares and redwings is always sparkling compensation for the gloomy approach of winter but I would have to wait a little longer. At least the sun was out, turning the sprung shoulders of a kestrel to a vibrant caramel as it quartered the brook below me.

Almost as I reached the Baslow road the sunlight picked out a red deer stag standing tall some distance away, antlers raised, breath steaming from its flared nostrils. At the same time I caught sight of another beast advancing towards the stag with an enormous-lensed camera held to his eye.

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