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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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Brown bears, grey seals and an errant crocodile are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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In a bid to safeguard knowledge the Matsés in Peru have been planting “medicinal agroforestry” plots and written a 1,044-page two-volume book.

The seven indigenous Matsés elders were slowly meandering through the forest. They were explaining how different trees and plants are used for medicinal purposes, exchanging stories about how they had acquired their extraordinary knowledge and put it to good use. There were memories of an encounter with a jaguar and someone’s father struck by some kind of pain in the eye - “not conjunctivitis!” - while claims were made for successfully treating women haemorrhaging, snake-bite, a swollen leg and constipation.

The forest we were in was actually more of a garden - or “healing forest” or “medicinal agroforestry” plot - planted late last year by six young Matsés men under the expert guidance of elder Arturo Tumi Nëcca Potsad. “There are all types [of trees and plants] here,” Arturo told the Guardian, holding a spear made of peach palm and looking about him. “About 100 types, 3,000 plants.”

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The shopping frenzy will see 82,000 diesel delivery vans on UK streets, with plastic toys and electronic goods among the most popular purchases

The online shopping frenzy of the Black Friday weekend will see 82,000 diesel vans and trucks on UK roads, raising concerns of air pollution spikes on residential streets as more than £7bn of purchases are delivered.

In the UK online shoppers are expected to spend up to £1.35bn today alone, according to analysts at IMRG, the UK’s online retail association. Plastic toys, games and electronic goods are among the most sought after items in the biggest weekend of shopping in Britain and the US, with environmentalists and health experts warning that it will add to the mountain of plastic waste and increase air pollution.

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It can be dangerous – we get close to moving supertankers. Then there’s the worry about how private security will react

My first political epiphany concerned the world trade protests in 1999. I was 17 and had a feeling globalisation was a good thing – until I realised it was about money and economics, not people and culture; so in the early 2000s I joined some anti-globalisation protests in Quebec.

Several years later, I heard about kayaktivism. I’d kayaked before, and been an activist, but never married the two. My first kayak protest was in Quebec’s Saint Lawrence estuary in 2014. TransCanada wanted to build a supertanker port in a beluga whale nursery. Our mission was to kayak to a boat doing seismic testing, unfurl a banner and take a picture. It wasn’t about stopping the boat, but drawing attention to what was happening.

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The new service by Great Western Railway has reduced bike space, a troublesome booking system and fails to meet the needs of disabled, elderly or less mobile cyclists

Great Western Railway’s (GWR) new high-speed Intercity Express trains made headlines last month with their gaffe-filled launch that saw new trains temporarily taken out of service after several on-board malfunctions, on a service that arrived 41 minutes late, with the transport secretary on board.

There could be more bad news down the line for those travelling with cycles, with the prospect that bike space on the new trains is reduced to zero at times, and those who have not booked a bike ticket told they won’t be able to board at all, whether there is free bike space or not.

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With the country poised for Sunday’s elections, the murder of environmentalists in Honduras is being directly linked with water and food shortages, violence and migration. Photographer Sean Hawkey visited what has become a frontline of climate change conflict

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Cavenham Heath, Suffolk The woodland reveals beetles both common and rare, and a surprising pile of ladybird wings

Blue sky, still air and the winter sun have lifted the heavy overnight frost. Cavenham Heath contains one of the largest blocks of heathland and acid grassland in the south-west Breckland, but the path from the car park starts in a predominantly birch woodland. Tearing a weathered birch polypore (Fomitopsis betulina) from a standing trunk, I fumble through its white flesh. It is shot through with burrows and in places under the pale leathery skin it is dry and powdery, while elsewhere the fungus retains a tough marshmallow consistency.

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When the NEG was nebulous, its boosters were able to promise all things to all people. Now, with slightly more detail out, it will be a really hard sell.

World's biggest battery charges up for first time as testing begins ahead of its formal commissioning next week.

COAG agrees to commission more design work on the Turnbull government's proposed National Energy Guarantee, forcing the renewable energy industries in Australia into yet another period of policy uncertainty.

As Queensland prepares to vote in the state election on Saturday, we look at what's at stake for the renewables industry – particularly if Labor loses.

Northern Territory government expected to unveil roadmap for 50 per cent renewable energy target next week.

Reconstruction progress in Nepal has been painfully slow. Building code compliance and better urban planning are a must – but inequitable access to resources undermines recovery. Jason von Meding, Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction, University of Newcastle Hari Darshan Shrestha, Associate professor Disaster Management and structural Engineering Humayun Kabir, Professor, DRR expert, University of Dhaka Iftekhar Ahmed, Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Native vegetation was home to several threatened species and was in a Great Barrier Reef catchment

Queensland farmers are suspected of having defied rare federal government intervention and cleared a large swath of land without commonwealth approval, according to conservationists.

The native vegetation was in a reef catchment, meaning the clearing could worsen pollution on the Great Barrier Reef. Government-commissioned studies show it provided habitat to several threatened species.

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Drone footage shows the aftermath of allegedly unlawful clearing, about 70km south-west of Cairns. The area is thought to be habitat for several threatened species, and is in a reef catchment, meaning the clearing could worsen water quality on the embattled Great Barrier Reef.

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This is the first event where electric vehicles demonstrated that the drive from Devonport to Cradle Mountain, a popular tourist destination, is entirely possible using standard production EVs currently available in Australia.

Energy Networks Australia is pleased to announce Mr Andrew Dillon’s appointment as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Australian Renewable Energy Agency tips another $20m into feasibility and business case for second interconnector across Bass Strait.

Scientists call the new timelapse video the "most complete global picture of life on Earth to date".