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Would you eat whale or dolphin meat after visiting a marine sanctuary?
After visiting a whale sanctuary in Iceland there is also the chance to eat whale at a nearby restaurant. It seems like a bizarre idea, but what are the ethical and culinary implications?
Should you eat whale meat? Reports on Iceland’s new retirement home for beluga whales note that, after viewing the animals – rescued from a Shanghai marine park – tourists can then visit a harbourside restaurant where they can dine on whale meat. Last week, Iceland resumed whaling after a three-year hiatus, killing a 20-metre fin whale on the country’s west coast.
The Iceland sanctuary has been set up with the assistance of the highly reputable Whale and Dolphin Conservation organisation. Danny Groves of WDC notes that only 3% of Iceland’s local population now eat whale. He points out that the country’s whale-watching industry far outweighs whaling economically. “The sanctuary ... should be championed as an alternative to the cruel practises of whale and dolphin hunting and the keeping of these animals in captivity,” he says.
Continue reading...China lifts ban on British beef
£250m deal allows official market access negotiations to begin, 20 years after beef was banned following the BSE outbreak
British beef will be back on the menu in China for the first time in more than 20 years, after it officially lifted the longstanding ban on exports from the UK.
More than two decades since the Chinese government first banned British beef after the BSE outbreak, the milestone is the culmination of several years of site inspections in the UK and negotiations between government officials.
Continue reading...Energy Equity Program Manager, California Environmental Justice Alliance – Oakland/Huntington Park/Sacramento
Cheap bacon: how shops and shoppers let down our pigs
With Brexit looming our animal welfare standards are vulnerable. We’ve got welfare reform wrong in the past - how can we get it right in the future?
“When it came to the crunch the retailers let us down,” says Ian Campbell. When he took over the running of a Norfolk farm in the early 1990s, pig farming was a successful, relatively healthy British sector.
But within a few years a government ban on the use of gestation crates, combined with a rise in the value of the pound and a pig meat glut in Europe, would decimate the industry. The number of UK farmers would be nearly halved, while cheap meat from other countries with lower welfare requirements would come flooding in.
China’s Sinopec makes carbon profits on govt refinery clampdown
Trump should inspire us all, but not in the way you might guess | John Abraham
Joe Romm’s new book details the sticky messaging tactics successfully employed by Trump and others
Scientists like me – and really, everyone – can learn from President Donald Trump’s mastery of viral messaging.
True, he has turned the United States into a pariah nation, one reviled for ripping immigrant children from their parents and from withdrawing from our only real chance at stabilizing the climate, the Paris Accord.
EU Market: EUAs keep above €15 despite struggling to absorb large UK auction
Australian offset veteran leaves GreenCollar Group to start advisory firm
UK environment policies in tatters, warn green groups
‘Disastrous decisions’ such as Heathrow expansion and rejection of Swansea tidal lagoon spark concern over government direction
Environmental campaigners and clean air groups have warned that the government’s green credentials are in tatters after a flurry of “disastrous decisions” that they say will be condemned by future generations.
The government’s plan to expand Heathrow won overwhelming backing in the Commons on Monday – with more than 100 Labour MPs joining Tory and SNP politicians to back the plan – despite grave concerns about its impact on air pollution and the UK’s carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Cannabis growth is killing one of the cutest (and fiercest) creatures in the US
The Humboldt marten could soon be an endangered species in California as the weed industry threatens its habitat
Fierce yet adorable, Humboldt martens have been described as the west coast’s own Tasmanian devils. The biologist Tierra Curry compares the red-chested mammal to another small, tenacious creature: “It’s a kitten that thinks it’s a honey badger,” she said. “It will crawl right into a bee nest and eat the honeycomb and larvae, getting its face stung the whole time.”
But there are some dangers that the marten cannot withstand – such as marijuana cultivation.
Continue reading...One football pitch of forest lost every second in 2017, data reveals
Global deforestation is on an upward trend, jeopardising efforts to tackle climate change and the massive decline in wildlife
The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year.
Continue reading...'There is no oak left': are Britain's trees disappearing?
The first national ‘tree champion’ is charged with reversing the fortunes of the country’s woodlands and beleaguered urban trees
England is running out of oak. The last of the trees planted by the Victorians are now being harvested, and in the intervening century so few have been grown – and fewer still grown in the right conditions for making timber – that imports, mostly from the US and Europe, are the only answer.
“We are now using the oaks our ancestors planted, and there has been no oak coming up to replace it,” says Mike Tustin, chartered forester at John Clegg and Co, the woodland arm of estate agents Strutt and Parker. “There is no oak left in England. There just is no more.”
Continue reading...Senate launches inquiry into threatened species 'extinction crisis'
Inquiry initiated by Greens follows Guardian investigation exposing funding and management failings
The Senate has launched an inquiry into Australia’s threatened species crisis after an investigation of national threatened species management by Guardian Australia revealed problems including poor monitoring and a lack of funding.
The inquiry, initiated by Greens senator Janet Rice and supported by Labor and crossbenchers on Wednesday, will examine issues including the country’s alarming rate of species decline, the adequacy of Commonwealth laws that are supposed to protect threatened wildlife, and the effectiveness of funding for threatened species.
Farmers' groups withhold data from $9m Great Barrier Reef water quality program
The government-funded program was designed to reduce polluted run-off to the reef
Agriculture industry groups have refused to show the Queensland government the results of a government-funded program that aims to improve Great Barrier Reef water quality.
The Queensland Audit Office, in a report to parliament, said the farming industry groups had withheld data about the best management practices program due to “privacy concerns” and that its effectiveness might be “overstated”.
Continue reading...Country diary: take me to the river where Cambria looks like Cumbria
Dolgellau, Gwynedd: The similarity of this corner of Wales to the landscape of the southern Lake District is striking
The path by the Afon Wnion was liberally scattered with small branches and twigs still carrying tattered leaves, the debris of the storm the previous night. The wind had moderated slightly but the flag on St Mary’s church still stood out strongly from the pole on the tower. Beyond it, the severe northern flanks of Cadair Idris slid in and out of focus as clouds swept across the mountain, their speed reinforcing my doubts about taking a high-level route alone. Today, I decided, was one for the lowlands – a decision that, coincidentally, allowed time for a cooked breakfast.
Continue reading...Baker McKenzie acts on $A500 million Macarthur Wind Farm refinancing
Tandem virus cocktail kills pest rabbits more effectively
Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft reaches cosmic 'diamond'
Could seaweed solve Indonesia's plastic crisis?
In a country of more than 17000 islands, seaweed might be the ideal raw material for a bio-plastics revolution.
Indonesia produces more marine plastic pollution than any other country except China. This is perhaps unsurprising: the world’s biggest archipelago is also its fourth most populous. Limited income and cash flow means that poorer communities rely on cheap single-use plastics like bags, water cups and shampoo sachets. Waste management systems are rudimentary and each year millions of tonnes of trash ends up in waterways and eventually the ocean.
Last year Indonesia pledged US$1 billion to cut its marine waste by 70% by 2025. The country will have to tackle the issue on multiple fronts if this ambitious target is to be met. Besides changing consumer habits and improving waste management infrastructure, industry needs to move away from single use plastics and quickly introduce and scale up biodegradable alternatives.
State government is keeping solar owners in the dark
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